August 19, 2026 at Assembly Roxy, Central
An outsider’s perspective is often an advantage in comedy – an immigrant talking about a country where they didn’t grow up, a queer person dissecting the dominant straight culture, a neurodivergent person talking about a world that’s not built for them, a thousand other examples of people who can see, from the outside, the idiosyncrasies in a culture that appears normal to those who are used to it. Fish don’t know they’re in water, and due to some obscure psychological functions, they find it hilarious when the direction of the currents is pointed out.
As a comedian from Yorkshire, if Rob Auton wanted to observe from an outsider’s perspective, he could do what many other comedians have done, and talk about being from Northern England while in London (or while in an Edinburgh that’s been occupied by Londeners). But Auton is never satisfied with doing what many other comedians have done, and a few hours by train isn’t far enough away for the level of outsider that he’s capable of embodying. Instead, he makes himself the ultimate outsider, doing a show from the perspective of a real estate agent on the planet Jupiter.
His dive into the premise is very shallow – the worldbuilding around why Jupiter has a civilization with real estate agencies is barely there, only mentioned in a couple of throwaway jokes. The fact that Jupiter is a ball of gas that could never sustain life is mentioned briefly, just to be waved away. That’s because the point of this story is not Jupiter, the point is Earth. The entire fragile conceit has been built as an excuse to turn the gaze back around, and look at the Earth from seven million kilometres away.
It turns out that from seven million kilometres away, Earth is beautiful. More than that, Earth is incredible. Earth is magical, Earth is full of infinitesimally unlikely miracles, Earth is awe-inspiring, Earth is shocking. Auton gives us example after example of this, some absurdly small, some absurdly huge. This show is about making jokes of how odd the Earth seems from far outside it, but it’s equally about convincing people to see wonder in what we’ve become used to. It’s life-affirming in the most literal way.
Jupiter began as a short story, and adapting it to a full hour has required some creative ways to break up the messaging. Auton mainly does this via the two other characters, citizens of Jupiter who are considering a move to Earth. The story stretches out more smoothly when some of the ideas come from their mouths – sometimes parts of the story that they should never have known, and Auton gets comedy out of unlikely explanations for their involvement.
It builds to a powerful conclusion, and by the end, I had goosebumps down my arms and shivers down my spine from the scale of ideas presented.
Dave Baillie