Anesti Danelis has amassed a considerable following online – more than 150,000 on Instagram and more than 400,000 on YouTube – and it’s not difficult to see why. During his new comedy-musical Fringe show ‘Artificially Intelligent’, he cuts a neurotic but energetic and endearing figure; he reels you in with some light jokes about the venue and crowd work and introduces the concept of artificial intelligence, making clever use of a robotic voice introduced as ChatGPT. Then, just when you think you’re in for a show about robots and disembodied artificial voices, Danelis invites you into his wonderfully paranoid, self-deprecating world.
He paints a lurid picture of growing up in a Greek immigrant family where pressures to succeed are immense, and anxiety is almost an inevitability. Danelis mines this background to craft quips, impressions and songs that are intensely relatable, absurd, and occasionally side-splitting.
He’s a relatable performer and he manages to keep you right there with him, even as his anecdotes drift towards the absurd and schizophrenic; you find yourself thinking, ‘ah yes, who among us hasn’t suspected their lover to be a serial killer?’.
Danelis, as a bisexual man, also manages to juxtapose the straight and queer worlds, gently poking fun at his predominantly straight audience. His performance loses some steam towards the end as he stumbles through some tangential crowd work and tired jokes, but he keeps the crowd with him and manages to artfully unite his disparate concepts and, with the help of his artificial friend, tie a bow on a thoroughly entertaining and idiosyncratic stand-up show.
Anesti Danelis, Artificially Intelligent, 14.15, Underbelly
https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/anesti-danelis-artificially-intelligent
