Since I started this blog in 2015, I have written
about Daniel Kitson more times than anyone else. In 2008 I went to my first Kitson gig,
The Impotent Fury of the Privileged. Since then I’ve made the pilgrimage biannually, meaning I've visited his shrine at least twenty
times. Before Kitson, I never understood fandom. I never understood why someone
would journey across the country to see their favourite act, to see them
perform the same material on separate tour dates, to listen to their bootlegs.
With Kitson I’ve become that person. Last year, The Girl and I went to
Liverpool to see his show Mouse: The
Persistence of an Unlikely Thought because I knew it wouldn’t be performed
in London. Why do I keep going back? I go back because it’s exciting seeing
what he’ll do next. If you go online you can download his earlier Edinburgh
shows; there you’ll hear how a sea-saw of humanity and misanthropy made him into the 5-star rated comedian.
These shows were still ambitious, allowing for digressions and deconstructions,
but they were fairly linear in structure, making them easy to follow. Having
perfected the content of stand-up, Kitson has spent the last ten years pushing
how he tells it. Coils of electronica were used in Where Once Was Wonder, analogue tape decks
in Analog.Ue, iPods in his follow-up show, Polyphony
– he is to all extents and purposes The Radiohead of comedy: having written the
hits, he’s determined to transcend the form.
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| Set for Analog.Ue. Pic. courtesy of vicstercorner.59 |
His new show Something
Other Than Everything has been much anticipated. Over the past few years,
Kitson has concentrated on the theatrical, concocting characters for Tree and Ana.logue. These shows staged at The Old Vic and The National Theatre, respectively, evoked comparisons with avant-garde playwright Samuel Beckett. (That’s
not something people say about Michael McIntyre.) This show though is Kitson’s
return to stand-up – or at least, a more autobiographical form of comedy. In
his précis Kitson talked about ‘alter(ing) the function of language’ and
‘invent(ing) a new form of stand up comedy.’ Now for those of you who’ve never
visited the church of Kitson, you might think this all sounds a bit Shia
LaBoeuf: a joker dressing up as an artist; but for fans of Kitson this doesn’t sound so far-fetched. Kitson re-wrote the comedy rulebook once before
(after winning the Edinburgh Comedy Award in 2002 he turned his back on
straight stand-up for the visionary shows I discussed earlier) so why couldn’t
he do it again?
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| Shia LaBoeuf: artist, thinker, prophet. |
Kitson’s Something
Other Than Everything, I should say from the outset, doesn’t invent a new
form of stand up. The man that re-invented the wheel hasn’t patented a new
tyre. What he has done is pack a two-hour show with more ideas and jokes than
most comedians have in a lifetime. Standing in the round, Kitson begins
by discussing isolation- how we’re all alone. We might think that our friendships
and relationships makes us a company of players, but
when it comes down to it we’re all Hamlets, internal monologists doomed to sit and ponder the sadness of our lot. Existentialism isn't
necessarily the most auspicious start for a comedy show, but the man is laying
the track for the two hours to come. He talks about the Brexit result and whether to wear a pin to show solidarity with immigrants. Then, with a shift of feet
he’s onto Orkney seaweed eating sheep. Another anti-clockwise rotation and he’s
talking about eating alone in a restaurant. The feet slide again and we’re onto
an encounter with a homeless man. Rotating again, we hear his paean to living
alone. His blocking is wholly necessary: with five narrative strands to balance
the position of his feet remind the audience of the section they’re on. Although this sounds
confusing, it doesn’t take long before you’re processing all the separate plots
and searching for the through-line that unites them. This is why I
love Daniel Kitson. He respects the intelligence of his audience. There is an
expectation that you’ll keep up- and you do. David Simon, the creator of The Wire, was once asked whether he was
worried the casual viewer wouldn’t keep up with his labyrinthine story, he
remarked ‘Fuck the casual viewer.’ Kitson is the same: he creates a HBO world of sub-plots, whereas lesser acts settle for laugh track sitcom.
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| It's not comedy. It's Daniel Kitson. |
What of the jokes though? Is this guy you venerate actually funny, Ryan? Or is he just a
pretentious schmuck that thinks he’s too good for Mock The Week? Well,
firstly who are you Imagined Cynic? Using the American epithet ‘schmuck’ alongside
the British cultural reference Mock The
Week? I can only assume in using both you’re Anglo-American and I don’t
know anyone of that ethnicity, so I should just disregard your curtness on the
grounds of being a figment of my imagination; however, I’ve got some time on my
hands so I’ll respond to your challenge in full.
Even though Kitson is reaching for the stars, his feet remain on the ground. The passage about his domestic life is
particularly hilarious. There’s diatribes on brushing your teeth in the morning
– a dentistry racket according to him; exaltations on balling socks – even
better than putting your balls in socks – and surreal riffs on how moths
discovered a taste for knitwear. Amongst these playful observations, there’s
rich laughs that come out of his own prejudice: he satirises confirmation bias
by claiming to use a greater range of news sources than anyone else – his variety of media? The Guardian newspaper, The Guardian App and The Guardian online. Despite the
mock-arrogance of being comedy's self-appointed ‘king of kings’, he understands that when it comes to life he’s a work in
progress.
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| Staging for Something Other Than Everything. |
As a caveat I do have to say that this is early days
with the show. Some critics have criticised it for being too long, others for
being unnecessarily technical. These are fair complaints. It was the first time
in a while when I’ve felt Kitson didn’t have full command of stage and script.
Working in The Bill Murray comedy club right up until deadline, you get the
feeling that Kitson hasn’t quite got the whole thing locked down. But then, so
what? It mightn’t be the finished article but it’s still better than everyone else. Ultimately, Kitson achieves the impossible in making the avant-garde entertaining. He is one for the head. He is for the heart. He will make your belly laugh. He will make your mind unfurl. He is as good as I say he is. He is as good as he says he is. Believe my hype. Believe his. Kitson is the greatest thinker in comedy today.
Daniel Kitson's show runs until the 29th July. Tickets can be bought here:
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