Review: Daniel Kitson - As of 1.52 GMT on Friday 27th April 2012

Review: Daniel Kitson - As of 1.52 GMT on Friday 27th April 2012

17 August, 2012
by: Crystal Bennes

Crystal Bennes is disappointed in Daniel Kitson and his new show

Before we begin, I need to make a little disclosure. I was heckled at this show. By the comedian himself. Within the first five minutes. Now, I'm not sure if you've ever been heckled before, but it's not very nice. Especially if you're sitting in the second row, minding your business, preparing to do some work. But, Daniel Kitson spotted someone with pen and paper in the audience and couldn't resist a dig: "You, there, with the paper. What are you doing?" Me: "My job, dickhead, same as you. Now get on with the show."

Obviously, that's not what I said at the time, which was: "I'm writing". To which Mr Kitson replied with a little speech on the benefits of just sitting still and watching the show. Now, I'm about to criticise Kitson's show for being so self-absorbed it became tiresome, a self-absorption of exactly the same kind displayed by yours truly above. I'm telling you this because I really did not like this show at all and I want to offer full disclosure on the heckle (which I know wasn't really about me at all) so you don't find out later and think I only slated Kitson's show because he pissed me off.

So, why didn't I like this show? If you've seen Synedoche, Adaptation, The Truman Show, Stranger Than Fiction, or better yet, all of these films in such quick succession that you lose all ability to distinguish between them, then you'll have seen four better versions of what this show was presumably trying to do.

Daniel Kitson, the real Daniel Kitson, has written a play about the process of writing a play. To this end, he has created four distinct layers, each more removed from reality than the last. And yet, Kitson plays three of these layers as various permutations of his own persona. So, most obviously, we have Kitson playing himself on stage as the show begins, reading the script of the play that was supposed to be staged with actors. 

This Kitson as Kitson also plays himself describing the process of writing the show to a friend or an agent or some unknown someone on the other end of the telephone. Third-layer Kitson is perhaps the most self-obsessed and self-referential, repeatedly mentioning that nothing other than the sheer awesomeness of his talent will see that the show - with its wacky ideas - will produce the goods. The forth layer in and we have, Kitson playing Kitson (on stage) playing Kitson (on the phone) playing Kitson with Jen, his American co-writer/love interest. And in the fifth and final layer, it's all of the above with Kitson also playing the central characters in the story at the heart of the play, Max and Connie. Connie is a disbelieving nurse who meets the older Max, a man who has an interesting rule for living life.

The story of Max and Connie feels like an afterthought in a show that ends up being too much about the structural fireworks of the visible framework of a show which feels as if it has nothing to say. Kitson is a talented performer with an intellect as sharp as a shard of glass and the ability to create a brilliant rapport with (nearly all of) his audience. I only wish that he'd have put these qualities to better use and written a theatrical narrative with an idea at the centre bigger than just himself.

More on Spoonfed
Edinburgh Fringe Festival reviews
Daniel Kitson - Where Once Was Wonder
Spoonfed Singles Club with Fidlar, Blanck Mass and TEED

Crystal Bennes