david sedaris tour 2023 uk

David Sedaris

David Sedaris is one of the wittiest and most original writers at work today. A Grammy Award nominated American writer and broadcaster. Much of more...

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An Evening with David Sedaris, UK Tour 2024

David Sedaris is known for being one of America’s most celebrated satirists and humour writers. He is also the star of his largely popular Radio 4 series ‘Meet David Sedaris’.

Sedaris has now announced new tour dates for 2024, beginning with two nights at London’s Festival Hall on 4th & 5th July and finishing at Brighton’s Dome on 13th July. Throughout the tour, he will read new and unpublished stories, take questions from the audience and sign books while meet his audience.

Through his work, Sedaris has provoked us to consider the absurdities of human nature and modern life: family, travel, relationships, aging, the pandemic, political upheavals, and of course roadside trash! He is capable at making us laugh, think and be deeply moved, all simultaneously.

Sedaris also wrote the New York Times best-sellers Barrel Fever, Holidays on Ice, Naked, Me Talk Pretty One Day, Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, When You Are Engulfed in Flames, Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls, and Calypso. He is also the author of The Best of Me which collects 42 previously published stories and essays. Sedaris’ Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk: A Modest Bestiary is a collection of fables with illustrations by Ian Falconer.

Other work by Sedaris includes being the editor of Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules: An Anthology of Outstanding Stories. His pieces regularly appear in The New Yorker and have twice been included in “The Best American Essays.” The two volumes of his diaries, Theft By Finding: Diaries (1977-2002) and A Carnival of Snackery, Diaries (2003-2020) were New York Times bestsellers. An art book of Sedaris’s diary covers, David Sedaris Diaries: A Visual Compendium, was edited by Jeffrey Jenkins. His most recent book, Happy-Go-Lucky, debuted at No.1 on the New York Times bestseller list. The audio version of Happy-Go-Lucky, also narrated by Sedaris, won the 2023 Audie Award. His next book is set to be a short graphic novel for children titled Pretty Ugly (TOON Books, February 27, 2024).

He has released an impressive amount of book, with over 16 million copies of his books in print which have been translated into 32 languages. He has been awarded the Terry Southern Prize for Humor, Thurber Prize for American Humor, Jonathan Swift International Literature Prize for Satire and Humor, Time 2001 Humorist of the Year Award, as well as the Medal for Spoken Language from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In March 2019 he was elected as a member into the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 2020 the New York Public Library voted Me Talk Pretty One Day one of the 125 most important books of the last 125 years.

UK 2024 Tour Dates:

Fri 4th & Sat 5th LONDON – Royal Festival Hall

Mon 6th BRISTOL – Beacon

Tues 9th MANCHESTER – Bridgewater Hall

Wed 10th EDINBURGH – Usher Hall

Fri 12th CAMBRIDGE – Corn Exchange

Sat 13th BRIGHTON – Dome

Buy tickets here

http://www.davidsedarisbooks.com/

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For those not in the know, stand-up comedy is a surprisingly fine art. It’s far from enough to just get up on stage and tell jokes unless you have categorical, undeniable proof that they are the greatest jokes written in the past decade, and trust me, chances are they’re not. No, one does have to bring something new to the table in order to get on the first rung of any stand-up comedy circuit in the world, and in the New York City born form of writer David Sedaris we have one of the most fascinating, not to mention funniest, humourists in the world. His life show is one that’s as fascinating as it is funny as Sedaris delivers stories and essays either from one of his released books or those that haven’t been published yet. His is a quiet, self-deprecating wit drawing on everything from his experiences growing up in North Carolina, to his time living in Paris and London, to his experiences with drug use and obsessive behaviours. His writing and delivery is accessible without ever being anything less than phenomenally intelligent, able to balance discussions on deep, dark subjects tempered with the levity of his quick wit as well as anyone else in the world. Stand up is an art, and David Sedaris has it down pat while making it entirely his own. Don’t just take my word for it however, this is a show to see as soon as possible.

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0203 356 5441, bestselling author david sedaris announces 2022 uk tour.

13 Oct 2021

David Sedaris, humorist, bestselling author and star of Radio 4 series ‘Meet David Sedaris’, has announced his UK dates for 2022 which includes a visit to York Barbican on 27 July 2022.

With sardonic wit and incisive social critiques, David Sedaris has become one of America’s pre-eminent humour writers. He is the master of satire and one of today’s most observant writers addressing the human condition. Calypso, his latest collection of essays, is a New York Times best-seller, and a Washington Post Best Book of the Year. The audiobook of Calypso has been nominated for a 2019 Grammy for the Best Spoken Word Album.

Each of these books was an immediate bestseller. He was also the editor of Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules: An Anthology of Outstanding Stories. His pieces regularly appear in The New Yorker and have twice been included in “The Best American Essays.” There are over ten million copies of his books in print and they have been translated into 25 languages. In 2018 he was awarded the Terry Southern Prize for Humor, as well as the Medal for Spoken Language from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In March 2019 he was elected as a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

He and his sister, Amy Sedaris, have collaborated under the name “The Talent Family” and have written half a dozen plays, which have been produced at La Mama, Lincoln Center, and The Drama Department in New York City. These plays include Stump the Host, Stitches, One Woman Shoe, which received an Obie Award, Incident at Cobbler’s Knob, and The Book of Liz, which was published in book form by Dramatists Play Service.

Sedaris’s original audio pieces can often be heard on the public radio show This American Life. He has been nominated for four Grammy Awards for Best Spoken Word and Best Comedy Album. His latest audio recording of new stories (recorded live) is “David Sedaris: Live for Your Listening Pleasure” (November 2009). A feature film adaptation of his story C.O.G. was released after a premiere at the Sundance Film Festival (2013). Since 2011, he can be heard annually on BBC R4 entitled “Meet David Sedaris.”

As a companion piece to his New York Times best-selling book Theft By Finding: Diaries (1977-2002), Jeffrey Jenkins published and edited an art book of Sedaris’s diary covers, entitled David Sedaris Diaries: A Visual Compendium.

Click here to find tickets for An Evening With David Sedaris on 27 Jul 2022

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An Evening With David Sedaris Credit Jenny Lewis

An Evening With David Sedaris Announces UK Tour

David Sedaris, humorist, bestselling author and star of Radio 4 series ‘Meet David Sedaris’, has announced a 20 date UK tour for 2022 which starts on Sunday 10 th July at Edinburgh’s Usher Hall and culminates on 2 nd August at Cardiff’s St. David’s Hall. The celebrated writers run includes the rescheduled dates at London’s Royal Festival Hall on 30 th & 31 st July and Manchester’s The Lowry on 1 st August. The tour is preceded by a new book in June 2022 entitled ‘Happy-Go-Lucky’

With sardonic wit and incisive social critiques, David Sedaris has become one of America’s pre-eminent humor writers. He is the master of satire and one of today’s most observant writers addressing the human condition. Sedaris has been nominated for five Grammy Awards for Best Spoken Word and Best Comedy Album. His audio recordings include “David Sedaris: Live for Your Listening Plea- sure” and “David Sedaris Live at Carnegie Hall.” Since 2011, he can be heard annually on a series of live recordings on BBC Radio 4 entitled “Meet David Sedaris.”

His recent books are The Best of Me – a collection of 42 previously published stories and essays and a second volume of his diaries A Carnival of Snackery, Diaries (2003- 2020) and Calypso , another collection of essays, was a New York Times best-seller, and a Washington Post Best Book of the Year. The audiobook of Calypso was also nominated for a 2019 Grammy for the Best Spoken Word Album.

In 2019 David Sedaris became a regular contributor to CBS Sunday Morning, and his Masterclass, David Sedaris Teaches Storytelling and Humor, was released. There are over 16 million copies of his books in print, and they have been translated into 32 languages. He has been awarded the Terry Southern Prize for Humor, Thurber Prize for American Humor, Jonathan Swift International Literature Prize for Satire and Humor, Time 2001 Humorist of the Year Award, as well as the Medal for Spoken Language from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In March 2019 he was elected as a member into the American Academy of Arts & Letters. In 2020 the New York Public Library voted Me Talk Pretty One Day as one of the 125 most important books of the last 125 years.

He and his sister, Amy Sedaris, have collaborated under the name “The Talent Family” and have written half-a-dozen plays, which have been produced at La Mama, Lincoln Center, and The Drama Department in New York City. These plays include Stump the Host , Stitches , One Woman Shoe , which received an Obie Award, Incident at Cobbler’s Knob , and The Book of Liz , which was published in book form by Dramatists Play Service.

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An Evening With David Sedaris (2022)

10th Jul 2022 - 2nd Aug 2022

David Sedaris , humorist, bestselling author and star of Radio 4 series Meet David Sedaris , has announced a 20 date UK tour for 2022 . The tour is preceded by a new book in June 2022 entitled Happy-Go-Lucky .

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The Hot Dogs and the Notebook

How david sedaris turned me into one of his freaks..

As soon as the last word of my story’s punchline left my lips, David Sedaris erupted in a fit of laughter. Eyelids clenched, mouth agape, he cackled at the ceiling of the posh lobby abutting the colossal hall where he had just performed a near-sold-out show.

A surge of satisfaction washed over me. I had just put Sedaris, a master humorist, on the other side of the laughs after he had held a couple thousand people rapt in their seats. But my joy turned to panic when Sedaris pulled out a notebook and pen and began writing down everything I had just told him, repeating it back to me—as if talking to himself, looking right through me—to get the tone and wording right.

Alarm bells went off in my head. My heartbeat went haywire. Like a switch, my reptilian brain flipped on, commanding me to choose, right then and there, whether I would fight, flee, or freeze at the thought of Sedaris turning me into one of his freaks before my eyes. I am an early-career writer—my stories are all I have! And this one was, um, personal . But with Sedaris done with me and people waiting in line behind me to get his autograph, I only had a few seconds to decide what to do.

You’re never safe around a writer, they say. The digital age exacerbates the hazards of this adage, where every living breath seems captive and commodified online. But Sedaris has been at this since before the internet, siphoning up experiences (and making them his own , so to speak), ready to turn anything into material. I just hadn’t quite understood what that looked like as I watched him wield his notebook like an eager bookie who’d found his latest chump.

I hadn’t read much by the famed entertainer at all before his tour stop in Tucson, Arizona, just before the pandemic. One afternoon, I sat in my university library room co-working with a then–love interest, who revealed herself as a longtime Sedaris enthusiast by citing books of his that I had never heard of.

I told her I had just noticed a posting about an upcoming local tour stop. She eagerly looked up tickets and slumped in her chair upon learning the student-forbidding price: $80. I offered to look up Sedaris’ publicist and see about writing a review of the show. The scheme was our ticket in.

The show was mostly marvelous. Sedaris had the 2,000 of us licking the palm of his hand. Looking around, the cavernous hall was packed, mainly with straight, white, over-50-somethings, bedecked in Patagonia wear on a wintry Sonoran night.

In one of the funniest sketches of the evening, Sedaris narrated the sorry circumstances of people who mistake him for a proctologist, presumably because his first- and middle-name initials form the title “D.R. Sedaris.” These hapless woebegones, blushing for shame from their anal curiosities, tried to fib Sedaris about the conditions under which they stuck objects up their anuses. One person, he claimed, said they fell on an aerosol spray can (leaving out, unexplained, how the can was spread with Vaseline). Another used a peppercorn grinder, and yet another a lightbulb. Sedaris got his shock and awe from the audience, right up to the squeamish climax: a frozen glass dildo that didn’t survive the rapid temperature change from freezer to rectum and shattered inside its unfortunate host.

After the show, my date wanted to wait in the meet-and-greet line leading to the lobby to shake Sedaris’ hand. For longer than the duration of his show, Sedaris sat alone at a wide table, ignoring a bag of tortilla chips but picking at a whole rotisserie chicken between guests. When it was our turn, I stood next to my date while she and Sedaris traded banter over her refusal of his small, hotel-size bottle of lotion he attempted to bestow on her as a pity gift after he learned we didn’t have any books to get autographed like everyone else in line; we just wanted to pay our respects. My date told him she’d rather have the tortilla chips he was not eating.

“Take them,” he beamed, giving her the whole bag. “I like you,” he said as he pointed at her. “You’re very frank!”

Then he turned to me, alertly leaning forward in his chair. Did he expect me to entertain him now? I hadn’t planned on saying anything to him, except possibly nodding in gratitude when my date was done and ready to leave. But then a distant memory popped in mind. I blurted out: “Your anal insertions stories gave me flashbacks to childhood!”

Sedaris’ facial expression dropped. He looked horrified. Who knows where he thought I was going with my story? Rape. Incest. Molestation? Not quite.

On cue, I proceeded to recount being around 12, with my anal insert of choice differing from every other hapless adult protagonist of his collection. You see, when I was 12, frozen hot dogs were a household favorite all to myself. And what else was an anal-curious kid to do? I couldn’t exactly go to an adult sex store or wait for my birthday to ask my parents for a dildo as a gift.

“What!?” Sedaris said, collapsing backward in his chair. “You stuck a frozen hot dog up your butt?!”

“It wasn’t pleasant,” I said, conceding his point. I didn’t tell Sedaris that my household dildo repertoire discreetly included whatever phallic food items I could find in the fridge. Besides hot dogs, carrots were the other main choice, with occasional futile attempts to insert a cucumber or the handle of a bathroom plunger. (No one seemed to miss the produce I kept tossing out.)

Sedaris was intrigued. “Why would you use a frozen hot dog?” he said.

I now believe this was a rhetorical question, but in the moment, I stepped back into my 12-year-old life. His question confused me; I wanted to set him straight.

“Because a frozen one is solid,” I said, raising my pitch to an assertive, instructive tone: “You can’t stick a flaccid one up there.”

Sedaris’ cackling guffaw was volcanic, punctuated by a series of coughs. I thought he might choke. He jerked his thumb toward the archways at the lobby exit. “You should go check yourself into a mental asylum,” he said. Then he whipped out the notebook, zigzagging his writing hand into it. He’d found a hot bet that couldn’t lose.

I stared, startled by his bizarre comment about asylums (which I later learned is a frequent topic in his written work) and fixated on the notebook as his pen scratched at it. I thought to myself: Wait, what’s going on here? If he’s going to use my story, why isn’t he asking my name? Did I just become one of his faceless caricatures, entertainment for the Patagonia-clad theatergoers who, from the profits of these shows, pay Sedaris’ bills? But then I froze. I walked away, horrified for both of us.

I woke up the next morning with a start. Could I tell Sedaris … not to tell people about my childhood hot dogs? Although I recounted this story discreetly to Sedaris on a misguided whim, I did feel some ownership over the secret of how I masturbated as a child. Would he really just assume that it was his to tell?

You might remember that I said I wasn’t particularly familiar with Sedaris before that night.

If I had been, I might have known the whole Sedaris gimmick. I might have read his 2002 piece for Esquire, “Repeat After Me,” in which Sedaris writes, “I swear to my family I won’t tell their secrets, but they know my word is no better than that of my sister’s parrot.” Like the time his sister Lisa confessed a traumatic incident that “began with a quick trip to the grocery store and ended, unexpectedly, with a wounded animal stuffed into a pillowcase and held to the tailpipe of her car.” When Lisa reached the end of her story and Sedaris started to laugh, she started sobbing. Sedaris takes us through what happened next:

I instinctively reached for the notebook I keep in my pocket, and she grabbed my hand to stop me. “If you ever,” she said, “ ever repeat that story, I’ll never talk to you again.” … My immediate goal was simply to change her mind. “Oh, come on,” I said. “The story’s really funny, and, I mean, it’s not like you’re going to do anything with it.”

Perhaps that’s what he might have said to me, were I not frozen like a lizard and asked him not to use my story. He might’ve told me, assuming I’m not a writer, that it’s not like I’m going to do anything with it.

The kind of writer that Sedaris embodies seems motivated by a compulsive, self-righteous duty to act as a one-man literary extraction industry, indivisible, to serve one’s own greater glory. If he doesn’t repeat these stories, then they’ll be lost forever or not exist at all, like how some metaphysicists perceive a tree falling in a forest with nobody around to hear it.

It’s easier to ask for forgiveness than for permission. Sedaris ends his Esquire essay by reflecting on the costs of breaking his promise not to keep secret his sister’s anguished tale:

She’s afraid to tell me anything important, knowing I’ll only turn around and write about it. In my mind, I’m like a friendly junkman, building things from the little pieces of scrap I find here and there, but my family’s started to see things differently. Their personal lives are the so-called pieces of scrap I so casually pick up, and they’re sick of it. Our conversations now start with the words, “You have to swear you will never repeat this.” I always promise, but it’s generally understood that my word is no better than Henry’s [Lisa’s parrot].

The essay ends with Sedaris sitting in front of his sister’s parrot late one night, “repeating slowly and clearly the words, ‘Forgive me. Forgive me. Forgive me.’ ” Sedaris summarizes it as “an act of contrition, of sorts, in the form of a funny story.”

Ultimately, whether speaking up or staying silent, my and Lisa’s fate were the same. Sedaris did repeat my story, just as he repeated Lisa’s.

I got confirmation of this days later from Sedaris’ tour publicist, who relished the story firsthand while on the job. “Funny enough,” he wrote me in an email, “we were at the show here in Chicago and he did mention the hot dog story. Quite the funny addition!” Slate confirmed this with someone at the same show as well.

In our era of Bad Art Friends and viral short stories cribbed from real life , I realize Sedaris’ transgression here—if you even consider it one—might not seem huge. I’m the one who told him the story, and I probably should have known better (though, again, I did not at the time). But it still felt more than a little icky to me that a 12-year-old sticking frozen hot dogs up their butt had become fodder for a naughty night of upper-middle-class guffaws, the testimony of a Sedaris-ian lost soul disappearing into the minds of an adoring crowd. It also seemed unethical to me, frankly, and something I wouldn’t do as a writer without permission. I am now repeating the story here under my real name. But it is mine to tell, isn’t it? I suppose, as the recent debates about authorial responsibility have shown, it depends who you ask.

I decided to ask Sedaris. Did he think everything anyone ever told him became his? Did he think he should credit where he gets his stories? He responded promptly.

“Perhaps when I pulled out my notebook you might have said, ‘Please don’t repeat that to anyone.’ Had you done so, I would have respected your wishes,” he wrote.

Fair enough, except: Shouldn’t he have been asking me ? He seemed to anticipate that question and went on to make a claim I instantly doubted: “At book signings, people tell me things specifically hoping I’ll repeat them, or at least put them in my diary. I’ve run into folks I’ve written about, and so far no one has complained.”

Besides, he wrote, “I don’t always know that I’m going to repeat something that someone told me. I had my hair cut yesterday by a 20-year-old Russian barber who talked about his grandmother. Should I have gotten his name and contact information should I decide to mention him in an essay ten years down the line?”

Sedaris concluded with the familiar fault lines of these debates: “What if I weren’t a writer? Would I be allowed to repeat a story at a cocktail party? Are comedians allowed to repeat things on stage? How far do the ethics reach? Did my repeating your story ‘steal’ it from you? Did it mean you couldn’t write about it in the future?”

I supposed it didn’t, because I am now. I followed up and said I preferred to reframe the question by asking not how far do the ethics reach, but how far the nonfiction writer reaches to obtain at least some form of consent from the sources that wittingly or unwittingly help construct the writer’s stories. Sedaris didn’t respond to that or other questions.

I’ve seen many fellow journalists take the Sedaris approach, assuming anything a source tells them is fair game unless the source explicitly says at the time that this or that is “off the record.” To me, it’s one issue to quote someone on or off the record. It’s another issue entirely to take a story that isn’t yours—using the source’s wording or unique expression—and to profit from it, publish it, or publicize it without permission. It’s fair to say Sedaris sees things differently.

As it happens, I am a teenage sexual assault survivor (that’s another story). Sedaris appearing to be compulsively attracted to my story in this way felt like a violation of a certain order, aside from these unspoken literary “rules,” perhaps specifically because of the intimate nature of the tale. He couldn’t have known that. He probably didn’t notice how I froze in that moment, how I wanted to tell him to stop writing but couldn’t. He did what he does, and I just stood there. At any rate, he wasn’t really looking at me anymore once he grabbed his notebook. He had moved on to the next venture.

In the time since we had this exchange, Sedaris released a book, sparked a few minicontroversies online , and used his press tour to air his bemusement at annoying letters from his readers . Another leg of his live shows launched this month, with more than two dozen locations scheduled before Thanksgiving.

I have no idea if my hot dogs are still part of the material, but if you attend a stop, now you know where Sedaris finds his weirdos: all around him, whether they’re willing or not.

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David Sedaris is one of America’s pre-eminent humor writers. He is a master of satire and one of today’s most observant writers. Sedaris has been nominated for five Grammy Awards for Best Spoken Word and Best Comedy Album.

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Unpacking what was funny and not in David Sedaris’ show at Kennedy Center

Afterthoughts on an act in which some of the humorist's most memorable stories framed women or people of color as individuals we’re supposed to laugh at.

I saw David Sedaris at the Kennedy Center in mid-October, and the performance has been simmering in my head. The performance has been a unique challenge to write about, both in terms of its medium and in terms of its content. This show’s premise is an unusual one for a night at the Kennedy Center for the “Performing Arts”: a figure primarily known for his dry-witted essays and radio work reads aloud from his work on stage. It wasn’t a poetry slam, and it wasn’t stand-up comedy — it was something entirely different, but certainly still entertaining. Also, as someone who thinks a lot about the convolutions that come when someone who calls themselves a comedian attempts to use irony, contrast, parody, and/or satire to comment on deeply complex and sensitive issues (I focused on how political comedians with big platforms can ethically explore complex topics in my Georgetown English Honors thesis last year), and as someone who is new to David Sedaris’ work, I was surprised and confused by core narrative elements of his presentation. I am eager to better understand his core ethos as a humorist, and one of the most popular and successful humorists working in America today. I want to give him credit where credit might be due, while also pointing out major issues that appear to be inherent in prominent elements of his storytelling.

The show was a one-night-only stop on his tour promoting his new collection of personal essays about life during the pandemic, Happy-Go-Lucky , his first personal essay collection since 2018. This performance consisted of Sedaris reading several essays and a few short passages, and taking some questions from the audience. Many of the stories he presented had to deal with recent experiences he’s had while traveling and working recently, dealing with unpleasant, frightening, or otherwise thought-provoking people with different sensibilities.

For those who may not be familiar with his work — you are. You’ve seen that book of his in Barnes and Noble with a painting of a skeleton smoking a cigarette on its cover (that one is titled When You Are Engulfed in Flames ), or that other cover featuring a piece of wood with a face (that one is Sedaris’ collection of semi-autobiographical essays entitled Calypso ). You may have also heard of Sedaris’ other bestselling titles like Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls , Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk: A Modest Bestiary , or Me Talk Pretty One Day .

Sedaris’ particular “comedic” style feels like a bittersweet coffee sipped at a quiet university coffee shop, or stories told among friends in which frustrations and anxieties are expressed with honest, quiet dignity and staunch opinions. He is undoubtedly funny, but offers a different palette of definitions for what “funny” can be. His is a unique brand of humor you don’t typically find outside of the comedic essay genre. His work isn’t a laugh-a-minute generator, which sitcoms, The Onion– style satire, late-night comedy, and Twitter comedians have trained many of us to expect from things that market themselves on their humor. In long moments without a joke, sometimes you’ll wonder where the humor was in a Sedaris story — but sitting and thinking about the core issues at play will eventually lead you to the realization that yes, modern life is indeed inherently confusing, and many of the cultural conceits we have come to abide by are inherently absurd.

It is odd, for example, to expect young children to endure blatant personal disrespect from adults simply on account of their age. It is also odd to expect that everyone ought to fall into line believing that “formalwear” should constitute a narrow set of specific clothing items, under a rigid set of gender norms — and Sedaris played with this concept in his own ebullient fashion selection for the performance. Whether or not you agree with his specific conclusions about issues with particular conceits, he makes the act of hearing him out quite entertaining. Sedaris’ most frequent subject across his work seems to be frustration with unspoken societal demands for propriety when something demands what he views to be “common sense”; he explores this subject with a subtle, confident wit that doesn’t seem to care whether you disagree. If there ever were a cat person — and I don’t know if he has cats, but I stand by that assertion — or a person who reminded me of a cat, it’s Sedaris.

If you fancy yourself a fan of “comedy,” “humor,” and ha-ha s generally, it is worth investigating Sedaris’ work to broaden your palette. He comments on social issues and the mundane in such a subtle way that you forget he’s writing “about” something while you’re reading — or listening to, in a theater or on the radio — his work. In this way, Sedaris feels like the introvert’s Larry David. Instead of being upset in the moment about the trope as it is being inflicted on him, he smiles and waves while it’s happening and then waits until he’s in front of an audience to complain.

I have to say: some of Sedaris’ commentary on cultural issues left a bitter taste in my mouth. One “joke” was him asking why when a person of color commits a crime, “we” are terrified of mentioning their race, but when a person of color does something admirable, “we” are eager to revel as much as possible in the fact they were in fact a person of color. End of “joke” (a paraphrase, but barely). That line felt like something Charlie Kirk might say. I was surprised to hear commentary like this from Sedaris that seemed so willingly blind to key social contexts, especially as someone who writes for highbrow literati and presents himself as one, if an offbeat, funny one. Some of the most memorable stories Sedaris told on stage framed women or people of color as the individuals we’re supposed to laugh at, for what Sedaris perceived as their inability to abide by particular norms — all while he, the comedic straight-man, attempted to deal with their “antics.” In one extended story, he described how during a visit to a city a woman of color who may have been mentally ill sexually harassed him. He described in depth how he had to duck into an apartment building and pretend to be a resident in order to get the doorman to help him evade her. Sedaris did acknowledge explicitly as part of his narrative that he felt the weight of his privilege as a white man who would not immediately be barred from using the building to escape, but this caveat was not enough to counteract the core ethos of Sedaris’ interpretation of the anecdote. He also addressed the fact that it is odd to joke about sexual assault but continued to tell the story anyway. Why tell a story like that? Who does that help? Why is it worth our time to laugh at the mentally ill, or the impoverished? Why frame a story like that in a way that makes light of any part of it?

I may need to listen to the story again to attempt to gather more of the nuance of Sedaris’ humor — but self-satire is unlikely, and the bulk of the story was spent describing this woman’s outlandish behavior. It is hard to know what purpose that kind of story serves besides punching down. While I don’t think his more concerning stories during this performance were intentional satire of those who lack a sense of nuance and compassion toward underprivileged groups — given that his style’s key rhetorical technique is analytical, even overanalytical thought — maybe there is something I’m missing.

I am interested in looking into more of Sedaris’ work in order to better understand his approach, which would be fascinating to write a paper on. I think he’s somewhere on a political-incorrectness-whether-you-like-it-or-not spectrum between Wanda Sykes and Philip Roth. I was entertained by an enormous amount of the show, and apart from that, anyone interested in fodder for rich “what is the responsibility of comedy?” conversations with friends should definitely spend time in Sedaris’ work.

Running Time: Approximately 90 minutes with no intermission.

David Sedaris performed on October 14, 2022, in the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Concert Hall, 2700 F Street NW, Washington, DC.

The David Sedaris program is online here.

Information about future comedy performances at Kennedy Center is online here.

COVID Safety: Masks are optional in all Kennedy Center spaces for visitors and staff. If you prefer to wear a mask, you are welcome to do so. See Kennedy Center’s complete COVID Safety Plan here.

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I don’t think you are missing anything — a spot-on, thoughtful analysis. Thank you.

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Happy-Go-Lucky

Back when restaurant menus were still printed on paper, and wearing a mask—or not—was a decision made mostly on Halloween, David Sedaris spent his time doing normal things. As Happy-Go-Lucky opens, he is learning to shoot guns with his sister, visiting muddy flea markets in Serbia, buying gummy worms to feed to ants, and telling his nonagenarian father wheelchair jokes.

But then the pandemic hits, and like so many others, he’s stuck in lockdown, unable to tour and read for audiences, the part of his work he loves most. To cope, he walks for miles through a nearly deserted city, smelling only his own breath. He vacuums his apartment twice a day, fails to hoard anything, and contemplates how sex workers and acupuncturists might be getting by during quarantine.

As the world gradually settles into a new reality, Sedaris too finds himself changed. His offer to fix a stranger’s teeth rebuffed, he straightens his own, and ventures into the world with new confidence. Newly orphaned, he considers what it means, in his seventh decade, no longer to be someone’s son. And back on the road, he discovers a battle-scarred America: people weary, storefronts empty or festooned with Help Wanted signs, walls painted with graffiti reflecting the contradictory messages of our time: Eat the Rich. Trump 2024. Black Lives Matter.

In Happy-Go-Lucky, David Sedaris once again captures what is most unexpected, hilarious, and poignant about these recent upheavals, personal and public, and expresses in precise language both the misanthropy and desire for connection that drive us all. If we must live in interesting times, there is no one better to chronicle them than the incomparable David Sedaris.

Buy "Happy-Go-Lucky"

About david sedaris.

David Sedaris is the bestselling author of the books Calypso, Theft By Finding , Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls, Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk, When You Are Engulfed in Flames, Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, Me Talk Pretty One Day, Holidays on Ice, Naked, and Barrel Fever . He is a regular contributor to The New Yorker and BBC Radio 4.

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The Best of Me

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Grand Rapids, MI / 7:30PM

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Berkeley, CA / 3:00PM

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Santa Cruz, CA / 7:30PM

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Davis, CA / 7:30PM

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Victoria, Canada / 7:30PM

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Vancouver, Canada / 7:30PM

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Brooklyn, NY / 7:30PM

July 4 / 2024 / London Royal Festival Hall

London, UK / 7:30PM

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Bristol, UK / 7:30PM

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Manchester, UK / 7:30PM

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Edinburgh, UK / 7:30PM

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Brighton, UK / 7:30PM

September 17 / 2024 / DeLaMar Theatre

Amsterdam, The Netherlands / 7:00PM

September 23 / 2024 / Chateau Neuf

Oslo, Norway / 7:00PM

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Stockholm, Sweden / 7:00PM

October 2 / 2024 / Massey Hall

Toronto, CAN / 7:30PM

October 14 / 2024 / The Avalon Theatre

Easton, MD / 7:00PM

October 23 / 2024 / Raue Center for the Arts

Crystal Lake, IL / 7:00PM

November 2 / 2024 / Raleigh Memorial Auditorium

Raleigh, NC / 8:00PM

November 6 / 2024 / Hennepin Theatre Trust

Minneapolis, MN / 7:30PM

November 8 / 2024 / Arlene Schnitzer Hall

Portland, OR / 7:30PM

November 14 / 2024 / Ellen Eccles Theatre

Logan, UT / 7:00PM

November 15 / 2024 / Popejoy Hall presented by UMN Public Events

Albuquerque, NM / 7:30PM

November 20 / 2024 / The Capitol Theatre

Yakima, WA / 7:00PM

November 21 / 2024 / Tower Theatre

Bend, OR (Night 1) / 7:00PM

November 22 / 2024 / Tower Theatre

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Listen to a David Sedaris Excerpt

Sat 6 Jul–Sun 7 Jul 2024

An Evening with David Sedaris

Beacon Hall

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Book Signings

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David Sedaris is one of America’s pre-eminent humor writers. He is a master of satire and one of today’s most observant writers, in many ways his life has been an open book.

Through his essays, diaries and hugely popular BBC Radio series, he has made us consider the absurdities of human nature and modern life: family, travel, relationships, aging, the pandemic, political upheavals and of course roadside trash!

By turns misanthropic and poignant, Sedaris deploys his precise prose and keen observational skills to make you laugh, think, and sometimes be deeply moved. David Sedaris returns to read new and unpublished stories, take questions and as is now an integral part of the evening, sign books and meet his audience.

Kilimanjaro Live presents

Format: Reserved seating

Age: Under 14s to be accompanied by an adult 18+

Doors: 19.00 Start time: 19.30 Finish: 21.00

All timings are approximate and subject to change

“Sedaris’s droll assessment of the mundane and the eccentrics who inhabit the world’s crevices make him one of the greatest humorists writing today.” Chicago Tribune

Open to all ticket holders, book signings will be held at Bridgehouse (our foyer space) before and after the show.

Pre-show signing: 18.30 – 19.00 Post-show signing: 21.00 – finish

Please note: Post-show signing will continue until all ticket holders who wish to attend have been seen.

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Beacon Hall has three levels that can be used in a seated or standing format. View seating plans, auditorium entrances and exits and accessible viewing areas.

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at Bristol Beacon

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Location: Beacon Hall is located within Bristol Beacon. Head to Level 1 and follow signs to find the auditorium.

Address: Bristol Beacon, Trenchard Street, Bristol, BS1 5AR

Bicycle racks can be found in front of the main entrance on Trenchard Street, Colston Street, and on the city centre promenade. Find your nearest cycle routes using Cycle Planner .

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Spaces for wheelchair users are in:

row S in the centre of the rear Stalls (10 spaces)
row Z in the left and right wings at the back of Lower Tier (4 spaces, 2 on each side),
rows G/H on the left only at the back of Upper Tier (2 spaces)

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Assistance dogs and emotional support animals are allowed in the performance space. Seats in row F are most suitable. If you prefer, you can leave your animal with a member of staff during the performance.

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Adrianne Lenker

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To The Ends Of The Earth

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Thu 9 May 2024

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Fri 10 May 2024

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Sat 11 May 2024

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Fri 17 May 2024

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An Evening with David Sedaris - Tickets Available

Beloved humorist and perennial New York Times best-seller David Sedaris has been bringing his signature self-deprecation to both the page and the stage ever since his comic debut in the late-'70s. Sedaris's live shows are equal parts touching and uproarious, taking his childhood trials and tribulations as a starting point and going on to tackle everything from his eccentric family to American politics. Fans of witty, irony-laden anecdotes are in for a treat as Sedaris hits concert halls around the country with his latest show “An Evening with David Sedaris”. David will be doing book signing pre-show and post-show. “An Evening with David Sedaris” is part of the humorist’s tour for Spring 2023, running March 31 through May 16, 2023.

Humorist and Best-selling Author of Calypso and A Carnival of Snackery: Diaries (2003-2020)

David Sedaris is one of America’s pre-eminent humor writers. He is a master of satire and one of today’s most observant writers.

Beloved for his personal essays and short stories, David Sedaris is the author of Barrel Fever , Holidays on Ice , Naked, Me Talk Pretty One Day, Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim , When You Are Engulfed in Flames, Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls, and Calypso , which was a Washington Post Best Book of the Year. He is the author of Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk: A Modest Bestiary, a collection of fables with illustrations by Ian Falconer. He is also the author of an essay length ebook titled Themes and Variations . Each of these books was an immediate bestseller. He was also the editor of Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules: An Anthology of Outstanding Stories . His pieces regularly appear in The New Yorker and have twice been included in “The Best American Essays.” The first volume of his diaries Theft By Finding: Diaries (1977-2002) was a New York Times best-selling book. As a companion piece to the book, Jeffrey Jenkins published and edited an art book of Sedaris’s diary covers, entitled David Sedaris Diaries: A Visual Compendium . His book, The Best of Me , is a collection of 42 previously published stories and essays, about which novelist Andrew Sean Greer wrote in the New York Times : “You must read “The Best of Me.” It will be a new experience, knowing that enough time has passed to find humor in the hardest parts of life. More than ever — we’re allowed to laugh.” The second volume of his diaries, A Carnival of Snackery, Diaries (2003-2020) was also a New York Times bestseller and the audiobook was selected as part of Apple’s Best Audiobooks of the Year for 2021. His new book, Happy-Go-Lucky , debuted at number one on the New York Times best-seller list.

Sedaris and his sister, Amy Sedaris, have collaborated under the name “The Talent Family” and have written half-a-dozen plays which have been produced at La Mama, Lincoln Center, and The Drama Department in New York City. These plays include Stump the Host , Stitches , One Woman Shoe , which received an Obie Award, Incident at Cobbler’s Knob , and The Book of Liz , which was published in book form by Dramatists Play Service.

Sedaris has been nominated for five Grammy Awards for Best Spoken Word and Best Comedy Album. His audio recordings include “David Sedaris: Live for Your Listening Pleasure” and “David Sedaris Live at Carnegie Hall.” A feature film adaptation of his story C.O.G. was released after a premiere at the Sundance Film Festival (2013). Since 2011, he can be heard annually on a series of live recordings on BBC Radio 4 entitled “Meet David Sedaris.” In 2019 David Sedaris became a regular contributor to CBS Sunday Morning, and his Masterclass, David Sedaris Teaches Storytelling and Humor, was released.

There are over 16 million copies of his books in print and they have been translated into 32 languages. He has been awarded the Terry Southern Prize for Humor, Thurber Prize for American Humor, Jonathan Swift International Literature Prize for Satire and Humor, Time 2001 Humorist of the Year Award, as well as the Medal for Spoken Language from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In March 2019 he was elected as a member into the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 2020 the New York Public Library voted Me Talk Pretty One Day one of the 125 most important books of the last 125 years.

You can follow David on Facebook at www.facebook.com/davidsedaris or visit his official website at http://www.davidsedarisbooks.com/

“Sedaris ain’t the preeminent humorist of his generation by accident”

—Whitney Pastorek, Entertainment Weekly

“Sedaris has hit upon the narrative equivalent of Pepsi, or the PlayStation, or oxygen, or the haircut: something that others in the world might actually want and find useful. . . He’s smart, he’s caustic, he’s mordant, and, somehow, he’s . . . well, nice.”

—Bill Richardson, Toronto Globe and Mail

“Sedaris’s droll assessment of the mundane and the eccentrics who inhabit the world’s crevices make him one of the greatest humorists writing today.”

---Chicago Tribune

“Sedaris belongs on any list of people writing in English at the moment who are revising our ideas about what’s funny.”

---San Francisco Chronicle

An Evening with David Sedaris

“…one of the greatest humorists writing today.” – Chicago Tribune

An audience favorite! David Sedaris is one of America’s pre-eminent humor writers, a master of satire, and one of today’s most observant writers. The author of the previous bestsellers Calypso, Naked, Me Talk Pretty One Day, Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim , and a regular National Public Radio contributor, he returns to Wharton Center with select readings from new and unpublished works.

Media partner: Michigan Radio

Age and Content Warnings

Recommended for ages 13 and up.

May contain adult language.

This performance will run 90 minutes, without intermission.

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An Evening with David Sedaris

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By turns misanthropic and poignant, Sedaris deploys his precise prose and keen observational skills to make you laugh, think, and sometimes be deeply moved. David Sedaris returns to Royal Festival Hall to read new and unpublished stories, take questions and as is now an integral part of the evening, sign books and meet his audience.

Doors: 1hr before show time

Curfew: 23:00

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An Evening With David Sedaris

Apr 10 | Wednesday , 2024 7:30 PM Buy Tickets

About the Event

An Evening with David Sedaris, author of the previous bestsellers Calypso, Naked, Me Talk Pretty One Day, Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, and regular National Public Radio contributor will be live on stage for one night only, following the release of his newest book Happy Go Lucky.

This is a unique opportunity to see the best-selling humorist in an intimate setting. As always, Sedaris will be offering a selection of all-new readings and recollections, as well as a Q&A session and book signing.