Tim Key: Invisible Dot in the West End

The Invisible Dot – London’s foremost indie comedy venue – is on the brink of its fifth birthday and embarking on its first ever West End season. 

To celebrate five years since the Dot’s humble beginnings in Camden Stables Market, and a wealth of investment in the grass-roots of standup since then, it’s sending a handful of A-list acts to the Duchess Theatre for an exciting two week run. 

Award-winning performance poet Tim Key comes to the Duchess for five nights starting at the end of April. He is one of the hottest tickets on the circuit, having in the past six months sold out a swathe of back-to-back runs at the Soho Theatre, the Invisible Dot and the Arcola Tent in Dalston, all the while with a gaggle of spellbound broadsheet critics at his knee. At the same time as all this he managed to write the BBC Radio 4 Extra series Tim Key’s Late Night Poetry Programme – one of the most offbeat and irresistibly hilarious radio comedies we’ve heard in a very long time. 

It’s been said that Key’s act comes closer to performance art than traditional standup. With an onstage persona as well crafted as his thwarted Masterslut, a poetic shambles firing occasional, pointed verse out into the room as if flicking lint off a sweater, it’s easy to see why. But Key’s deranged improvisation and laconic audience interaction permit the act to retain standup’s unpredictability and sense of thrilling jeopardy.

It s, however, fair to say that this mishmash of anecdotes, comic poems and bits of film is presented with the delivery, timing and skilfully varied pace of a masterful performer. It’s a treat to see him play a theatre befitting of his stature.