Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Daniel Kitson live at the Everyman as part of Liverpool's 2007 Comedy Festival

My head is full of lovely things to tell you about but it is nearly half past Midnight and with the best will in the world I cannot cover all of them, so I shall concentrate tonight on Daniel Kitson.

(ooh err missus, ed)

We shall I think draw a veil over the first half, but the second half was gold, pure gold. If you left half way through then shame on you!

(And if you were there then you will already be laughing)

He said that he had been described as the King of Student comedy, but looking round the theatre I reckon he is much more likely to be the King of Graduate comedy, but hey a King is a King, right Daniel?

I really enjoyed the Fireworks session. Lots of bells were ringing, lots of references connected with me. He talked about the lovely feeling he gets from watching fireworks and how it makes him feel good about the world and his place in it and how he savours the moment and stores it up ready for when he is old and withered in a home and has only those special moments to draw on.

I like fireworks too, but it is the pretty lights (ooooh............aaaah ed) rather than the bangs that I like. Ideally fireworks should be silent in my book, then I could stop flinching and wincing and simply enjoy.

He explored other things that make him feel as good, like paddling in the sea, eating in his favourite veggy restaurant (as long as no-one is smoking), being with his niece, listening to his ipod when it gets the shuffle right, walking on freshly laid snow

I wondered what makes me feel good, popping the cork on a bottle of champagne, cheering an election victory, that moment when your eyes meet his for the first time and inexplicably your heart pounds hard in your chest, getting in between fresh clean sheets, having my nephews run to me shouting for their Aunty LouLou.... It is a very emotive topic, well done to a comedic act for taking this on.

Colin's favourite was the Liverpool taxi driver story. Daniel always has a whinge about Liverpool taxi drivers when he comes over, he has been extremely badly served on many occasions and can go on for up to fifteen minutes when he gets into his stride on this topic. This time he started the story and got distracted and moved on to something else. As he announced an interval, a man in the audience shouted out that he had not finished his Liverpool Taxi Driver story, so he took a breath and said "I came out of Lime Street, got a taxi, and he was a dick....!"

Magnificent and very topical given the Echo's taxi coverage of late.

There was a tiny bit too much focus on the movements of members of the audience but a lot of that came out of the uncomfortability of being in a three quarter round auditorium, practice I am sure will make perfect, so come back please Daniel

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

And do you know where Daniel comes from? Yes it's sunny Huddersfield. He was at Shelley when I taught there for a year. He seemed a nice lad but I would never have imagined him as a stand up comic - maybe I didn't know him well enough!!
Good luck to him, he's done really well.

Louise Baldock said...

Denby Dale I thought......? Nearby anyway. He said he used to go to Scisset baths as a kid. He also said he was 29, but all I can say is he has had a hard paper round, or an unfortunate genetic inheritance viz a viz hair follicles.

x

Anonymous said...

It may well be Denby Dale but it's part of Huddersfield!!! Although they might not think so - it's probably like Honley and Holmfirth.
x

Anonymous said...

Lou,
here is the opening from the entry on him in Wikipedia

Daniel Kitson (born 2 July 1977 in Denby Dale, Huddersfield) is an English stand-up comedian. He has a stammer. He uses block modification on some occasions and uses substitute words.

So he's nearly 30 but as you say he looks a lot older. The rest of the entry is worth reading if you get a spare moment

Colin

Anonymous said...

Hi Louise

I agree with your comments from the chauffeur!

IT