May 4, 2008
Fear, apathy, cowardice, the terrible weight imposed upon us by the raw fact of human cruelty – yes, it’s comedy night at the Oxford Playhouse. Daniel Kitson’s new show aimed - among many, many other things - to explore the ways in which we manage to justify our lack of compassion for the world’s suffering, and how we might learn to do a little better.
Having previously known of Kitson solely by reputation, I was surprised by quite a lot of this show. From early rave reviews I expected a gentle, nerdy creature, using crippling self-awareness to create an uncomfortably tender intimacy with his audience – and instead got impassioned, machine-gun rhetoric and a surprising physicality. From what I’d heard about his previous ‘C90’ tour, I’d thought I might be in for something that sat in the now increasingly populated ground between stand-up comedy and confessional monologue – and instead got two hours of one man and his microphone delivering professional, gimmick-free laughs.
After what seemed, initially, like an over-long whinge about the fifteen minute interval forced upon the show by British host theatres, it loops itself out from a distressing incident in which Kitson found himself gradually drawn into a minor urban drama in the early hours of the morning. The story seems barely started before it barrels off in several different directions, taking in the varieties of human rudeness and the haphazard nature of the comedian’s thought processes about cheese. As the first half ended – Kitson makes a further point about the irksomeness of the interval by placing it seemingly at random – I was left wondering whether this was simply going to be another stand-up show trying to dignify itself with a half-hearted ‘message’.
In the second half the reason for what might seem like luvvie-ish prissiness over the show’s structure becomes clear. For all its surface flailing, this is a cleverly constructed monologue whose integrity is genuinely threatened by a fifteen minute opportunity to flog overpriced Shiraz. We return to the opening story, and the chaotic bag of thoughts we’ve been drawn into over the past two hours suddenly become tools of understanding for a point about compassion, morality and the depressingly inadequate tools we have to confront a suffering that’s considerably more complicated than the show’s title would have you expect. If I’ve been vague about actual content it’s because taking that journey yourself – which I strenuously recommend – is half the pleasure of it.
Having previously known of Kitson solely by reputation, I was surprised by quite a lot of this show. From early rave reviews I expected a gentle, nerdy creature, using crippling self-awareness to create an uncomfortably tender intimacy with his audience – and instead got impassioned, machine-gun rhetoric and a surprising physicality. From what I’d heard about his previous ‘C90’ tour, I’d thought I might be in for something that sat in the now increasingly populated ground between stand-up comedy and confessional monologue – and instead got two hours of one man and his microphone delivering professional, gimmick-free laughs.
After what seemed, initially, like an over-long whinge about the fifteen minute interval forced upon the show by British host theatres, it loops itself out from a distressing incident in which Kitson found himself gradually drawn into a minor urban drama in the early hours of the morning. The story seems barely started before it barrels off in several different directions, taking in the varieties of human rudeness and the haphazard nature of the comedian’s thought processes about cheese. As the first half ended – Kitson makes a further point about the irksomeness of the interval by placing it seemingly at random – I was left wondering whether this was simply going to be another stand-up show trying to dignify itself with a half-hearted ‘message’.
In the second half the reason for what might seem like luvvie-ish prissiness over the show’s structure becomes clear. For all its surface flailing, this is a cleverly constructed monologue whose integrity is genuinely threatened by a fifteen minute opportunity to flog overpriced Shiraz. We return to the opening story, and the chaotic bag of thoughts we’ve been drawn into over the past two hours suddenly become tools of understanding for a point about compassion, morality and the depressingly inadequate tools we have to confront a suffering that’s considerably more complicated than the show’s title would have you expect. If I’ve been vague about actual content it’s because taking that journey yourself – which I strenuously recommend – is half the pleasure of it.