EIBF: David Sedaris

The first of The Skinny’s events, and a good one at that. Chairman Al Senter started things off by saying his role would be mostly redundant, and so it was – Sedaris stood up at the lectern and proceeded to read two stories. This took half an hour, but it seemed much, much shorter – the time flew by. His first story took the form of an email, wherein a recently married woman berates one of the guests at her wedding for her lacklustre gift of a coupon for pizza… but as the story went on, it was the sender who turned out to be the villain. The second was an autobiographical piece, about a visit to Australia and how it reminded him of getting into trouble for singing a song about a kookaburra when he was a kid. After these, Sedaris devoted the second half to answering questions from the audience. It became clear quickly that Sedaris was willing to give detailed answers, and that he had a lot to chat about because he has chatted to a lot of people in the past – his stories often referenced things other audiences had told him. The hour passed all too quickly, because Sedaris was great. [Keir Hind]