A POPULAR TV comedian and author will bring his show about conspiracy theories to Cumbria on two dates this year.

Dom Joly, known for his TV show Trigger Happy TV and a series of travel books like Dark Tourist and Scar Monsters and Super Creeps, is touring with his 2023 book The Conspiracy Tourist.

It follows his travels around the world talking to various conspiracy theorists and digging deeper into where they come from and why people hold them.

Some highlights include the belief that Finland doesn’t exist, that the world is flat, QAnon, and anti-vaxxers.

Speaking to the News & Star, Mr Joly said the show is ‘extreme PowerPoint’ for the first half, during which he takes the audience through his travels.

The section of the book set in Finland explains the bizarre belief that the nation was invented by co-conspirators Russia and Japan to secure fishing water rights, and that all the country's residents are crisis actors.

"When those convinced by the lie are asked to look at a map, a flag, or go there, they doubt the map’s origin, and the claims of sovereignty,” he explained.

He also travelled to the land of far-right cult QAnon, known for the part it played in the riot and lynch mob at the Capitol Building in 2022.

The second half comes after what he admits is a polarising display – a headed debate with Dr Julian Northcote, a conspiracy theorist who has written and spoken extensively about ‘the epidemic of people being killed by cows in the UK’.

“I don’t like him, we don’t travel together, we don’t eat together,” Mr Joly said, adding that his presence is to showcase alternative views as a counter, and also to ‘highlight the weird things’ conspiracy theorists believe.

Conspiracy theories are nothing new. They were well documented in history, such as from the onset of the Spanish Flu during which anti-vax paranoia is said to originate, he said, adding they’re impossible to shake or convert from.

“It’s impossible to argue with insanity... the more you argue the deeper they dig themselves in,” he said.

Hence he’s not attempting to win anyone from that side, but simply inform, educate, and entertain a curious audience.

Explaining how people get into conspiracy theories, he said: “I think they tend to flourish in times of political turmoil and economic downturn.

“People feel embattled and isolated, that the world has conspired against them.

“We really don’t like chaos as humans, we can’t just accept that s**t happens.

“People are always looking for patterns.”

He added a modern catalyst is social media algorithms.

“The moment you express the slightest interest in such subjects the algorithm spots you and shows more content like that.

“I have a fake Facebook page as a conspiracist, and there is a stark difference between that and my personal feed.”

Modern-day threats by conspiracy theories have been seen in the Trump presidency and Covid era. Both were sources of conspiracies against the medical profession.

“The most threatening conspiracy is the broad mistrust of experts – it’s this feeling that experts are somehow bad, where doctors are the enemy.

“I have a friend who works at a hospital and she gets harassed for where she works, people claiming that the hospitals are empty, and they’re lying about the lack of beds.”

He’s tried to fight back – when he saw a Covid denier stickering conspiratorial remarks at a park, Joly returned with stickers insisting that Covid deniers have micro-penises.

This blend of making a serious point about powerful dangers and comedy is something audiences can expect from his show and book.

He concluded, of his show: “It still comes from an absurd and surreal place”

Dom Joly: The Conspiracy Tour will come to Theatre by the Lake in Keswick on September 26 and the Old Fire Station in Carlisle on November 5.

For ticket information for the Keswick show, click here; for the Carlisle show, click here.