March 19th – Anonymous at the Glasgow International Comedy Festival

Anonymous will be heading to the Stand as part of the Glasgow International Comedy Festival on the 19th March. Support will be from Derek Ryan. There’s a little blurb below with some reviews. cheers. K

Liberty. Privacy. Comedy. Irish comedian Keith Farnan’s show combines all of these elements before the first two disappear in his brand new hour ‘Anonymous’.

Every day, we find out that more of our personal data has either been given away, acquired in the interest or national security or sold to the highest bidder, and yet we keep buying gadgets that are happy to share our data with everyone like some blissed out data hippy. But what’s the harm if some of our details end up on a database? Who cares if our emails and Amazon wish lists end up on the desk of the NSA? And surely algorithms analyzing words and phrases from our Facebook updates in an effort to profile us into a certain demographic is a good and useful thing. Right? Maybe the future isn’t as bad as 1984; maybe this is the future where we get stuff for free in exchange for our personal data? But what about the next generation? Have we sold their privacy in exchange for free Wi-Fi?  

REVIEWS FOR ANONYMOUS

Broadway Baby:

“There is nothing inherently amusing about…state and corporate surveillance…Yet Farnan not only succeeds in teasing out the finer points of it, going through the arguments for and against mass data collection, but also manages to illustrate the human dimension, explaining why we should care about it. ‘I realise that this is beginning to sound like a TED Talk from a maniac’ he states during the show. In hindsight, this is a pretty accurate assessment of a fearless hour of stand-up.”

The List:

“Farnan’s set is full of facts about Facebook’s terms and conditions, and Google’s Gmail policies, but this isn’t a lecture about keeping safe online. It’s a well-structured, confidently performed stand-up set from a very likeable comedian”

The Skinny:

“It’s a clever show, with a greater depth of ideas than just anxieties and mild paranoia about the sharing of our data: it’s exactly the kind of solid and intelligent show we’d expect from Farnan”