David Baddiel takes aim at social media trolls in new show

This is exactly what David Baddiel seeks to explore in his latest show Trolls: Not the Dolls which came to Stafford Gatehouse Theatre on Tuesday evening.

Armed with a clicker and PowerPoint presentation, the show was presented in a similar style to one by Dave Gorman – but maybe (a lot) less PG.

Instead of going to the ‘bottom half of the internet’ his focus was on Twitter.

And as he admits – he likes a joke, but it can get him into all sorts of trouble.

Whether it was poking fun at politicians, celebs or presidents, his observational humour and quick wit was funny, clever and highlighted important morale issues around social media’s impact on society.

As the name of the show suggests, there are certain posts that will attract comments from trolls – those with single word insults, some offering a stern telling off in a school teacher style and others missing the point of the joke completely.

A recurring and very funny part of the show features Carlos from Venezuela, who Baddiel tweeted once and now regrets it.

With English being his second language he misses the point of Baddiel’s tweets most of the time, with hilarious results.

Baddiel also doesn’t shy away from confronting the difficult topics which blight social media, such as anti-Semitism of which he himself has been a target.

And on a lighter note, Twitter is also the place where his followers can send him their Baddiel lookalikes or pictures of their pets posing for fake album covers.

Audience members also get a chance to participate, being invited by Baddiel himself to troll him on Twitter during the interval.

Baddiel was laid back and conversational throughout the show, which was well put together, insightful and heartfelt in places.

And I’ll definitely never hear The Archers theme tune quite the same way ever again!