Daniel Kitson - We Are Gathered Here
Oct. 10th, 2009 02:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sharplittleteethLast night we went to see Daniel Kitson talk about death.
Specifically, the recent death of his aunt, and the existential numbness that followed. Not exactly hilarious material, so he padded the show out with jokes about cake and wanking.
This was his new stand-up show, We Are Gathered Here at the Athenaeum.
Despite the subject matter, this was the happiest and mellowest I've seen Kitson. There was much less railing against the dickheads of the world. Even the obligatory telling-off of a disruptive audience member (for playing with his mobile phone) was more a gentle chiding than the venomous lacerations he's dealt out in the past.
There's an arc to Ktison's shows: he lures the audience in with light-hearted jokes, takes them down to some darker places (rage, despair, philosophical culpability), and then leads them back to light with a sense of wonder at the tiny beauties and joys of the world. And if I had a criticism of this show, it's that that final upswing doesn't quite work, isn't quite strong enough to exorcise the gloom of knowing everyone you've loved and cared about will die.
Or maybe I was just in a mood.
Because I laughed loudly and I laughed a lot. Kitson is an expert performer, holding his audience rapt for over two hours, and making it all seem effortless. One quantifiable measure of how much you enjoyed an act is whether you go see them again, and I've already booked tickets to his show at the Arts Centre in January - 66a Church Road.
And when we got home, we learnt that NASA had bombed the Moon. Apparently, this might start a war. With aliens.
Specifically, the recent death of his aunt, and the existential numbness that followed. Not exactly hilarious material, so he padded the show out with jokes about cake and wanking.
This was his new stand-up show, We Are Gathered Here at the Athenaeum.
Despite the subject matter, this was the happiest and mellowest I've seen Kitson. There was much less railing against the dickheads of the world. Even the obligatory telling-off of a disruptive audience member (for playing with his mobile phone) was more a gentle chiding than the venomous lacerations he's dealt out in the past.
There's an arc to Ktison's shows: he lures the audience in with light-hearted jokes, takes them down to some darker places (rage, despair, philosophical culpability), and then leads them back to light with a sense of wonder at the tiny beauties and joys of the world. And if I had a criticism of this show, it's that that final upswing doesn't quite work, isn't quite strong enough to exorcise the gloom of knowing everyone you've loved and cared about will die.
Or maybe I was just in a mood.
Because I laughed loudly and I laughed a lot. Kitson is an expert performer, holding his audience rapt for over two hours, and making it all seem effortless. One quantifiable measure of how much you enjoyed an act is whether you go see them again, and I've already booked tickets to his show at the Arts Centre in January - 66a Church Road.
And when we got home, we learnt that NASA had bombed the Moon. Apparently, this might start a war. With aliens.
