After the Beginning, Before the End

“Remembrance of things past is not necessarily the remembrance of things as they were.”

(Marcel Prost)

Memory can be a bugger. It can’t be escaped. During the good times you forget it's there, you’re only in the here and now, the past a foreign country you can’t get a visa to. However in the hangover mornings, the isolated evenings it strikes again - Banquo hauntings at every turn. Happy memories don’t get a look in: their evil twin brother has kicked them into muteness. But at least you can hide the bad ones, lock them in a safe, one you only know the combination to. What happens though if someone’s memory of you is wrongly unpleasant? What then? What happens if they then tell someone else, and so on? Before you know it you’ve got a shit snowball with your reputation in the middle. The problem is you can’t control what other people think of you. (Well, you can but you need political office, a big budget and control over the means of communication, and I don’t know about you but I haven’t got those things in my kitchen.)

This idea of memory is the thematic concern of Daniel Kitson's brilliant download, After the Beginning, Before the End. The show is not a new one; it was recorded in 2013. In fact I went to see it with my old flatmates Dec and Beth in the Oxford Playhouse. This week an e-mail came through from Kitson announcing its release on Bandcamp. Now an e-mail from Daniel Kitson is as good as a telegram from The Queen as far as I’m concerned – it has more jokes in it for a start; although it is similar in that you have to ask for it (sign up to the mailing list). 

Note: until recently I didn’t know you had to notify The Queen to receive a telegram. What happens if you haven't got good friends and family to do it for you? It seems a bit needy requesting your own birthday message- like ringing Simon Mayo on ‘All Request Friday’ and dedicating a song to yourself. I just think the palace should think of the Eleanor Rigby’s of this world when thinking about telegram delivery.

It's a bit vain that The Queen puts a picture of herself in the card, isn't it? It's not her bloody day. It's all 'me, me, me' with her.

Anyhow, I bloody love Kitson and always look forward to reading his missives. Like I said, this week’s one was about him releasing a stand-up show. Now fans of Kitson will tell you that this is exciting news indeed. The man doesn’t release DVD’s, as a result there is barely any output available. To see what he does you have to go. Then after you’ve gone it’s gone- never to be relived, never to be revisited. For a man that creates two or three shows a year there are such few recordings available; this one is his newest one since 2007 show The Ballad of Roger and Grace. Awaking early this morning, The Girl next to me but faraway in Sleepytown, I decided to put on my earphones and slide into Kitson’s world.

The show begins with an ambient coil of electronica that will form the backdrop for his words. The effect is at first disorientating, given time absorbing, allowing you to recede into the language like a patient going under. Only in this piece it’s Kitson putting himself under the knife. He is uncomfortable with his friend Issy’s memory of him, causing him to question the essence of identity. After each chapter in the show, Kitson returns to this so we find out a little more about the story that incorrectly paint him in the worst light. In the intervening episodes Kitson walks a Modernist line, allowing theories of thought, knowledge and identity to seep into one another, ignoring the conventions of a narrative thread.

This is what Daniel Kitson looks like.

Despite sounding pretentious, this isn’t a cod-philosophy lecture. Amongst all the ruminations on life, the universe and everything else, Kitson has brilliant jokes about coffee and parsnips. He is a man that wraps up profundity in silly sticky tape. Take his meditation on loneliness where he talks about the difficult decision of wanting to stay up when you're tired.

“I could have a fucking coffee. I live on my own. I do want I want. I’ve got no one looking at me whilst I’m grinding the beans, saying "are you sure you should be doing that? You’re not going to sleep well." Really, I never sleep well. I’m too lonely and sad to sleep well. If I want a night java, I’ll have a fucking night java. I don’t fear the bean after dark."

Here Kitson exposes his false argument for autonomy. Yes when you’re single you’re able to make your own choices but that’s no replacement for the happiness you feel when you’re with someone. His skill as a linguist is evident with ‘java’ and ‘bean’ acting as the punch lines. For this comedian the thesaurus is a weapon of choice, resistance in the face of such language futile.

Cover art.

Ultimately this is a show where Kitson digs into his psyche to question how he thinks and other people think of him. In a telling episode he recounts a time when he took his video projector apart because it wouldn’t work; being a phrase maker with a craftsman eye for detail doesn’t equip you with the practical skills needed for reassembling, therefore he packs all the tiny pieces into a box where in the loft they now lie. He says this is a metaphor for how he sees his brain, “I got a bit curious, opened it up, and now I haven’t got any clue on how it functions.” This analogy is only half-true: unlike the projector, Kitson’s brain doesn't gather dust. His cerebrum is shinier than a spring clean in spring. Kitson might be oblivious as to how the whole thing comes together, but I hope he pontificates over the pieces for many years to come.

The download is available for £5 here: https://danielkitson.bandcamp.com/album/after-the-beginning-before-the-end