If you’ve ever wondered if there’s miso in Greenland, or the price of an apple in Liberia, Dan Kelly’s wonderfully nerdy show has you covered…
Being a data collector for a decade isn’t an obvious comedic source, but from the opening song’s dash through the supermarket shelves and his increasingly mad recordings of prices and weights into a Dictaphone it’s clear there’s a rich seam to be mined here. Dan’s mission to gather prices of a variety of goods and services takes him to far-flung locations like Tajikistan, Chad, Liberia and tiny island nation Palau, juggling a relationship and a baby with working out the cost of pasta in Moscow.
There’s some fascinating insights into how commerce is conducted around the world; it didn’t occur to me that some African nations have such volatile currencies that you can simply wait a short while and the price of apples will drop! The cunning techniques Dan uses to get data are brilliant, including a Bond-style Dictaphone concealment and using his imaginary wife to avoid arrest at an Iranian lingerie shop. It’s a harder job than it seems, as one audience volunteer learns while trying to mime paracetamol to a non-Anglophone pharmacist!
Dan’s job has inevitably shifted with the advent of technology and the travelling has stopped, but the next time you pick up a pineapple in Tesco you may just appreciate his hard work that little bit more.
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Dan Kelly: How I Went to Every Supermarket in the World is at Just The Tonic Mash House from Aug 6-30 at 19:30