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March 29, 2024, 12:08:04 PM

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Daniel Kitson 2020

Started by buntyman, March 15, 2020, 12:32:16 PM

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Old Thrashbarg

He's so good in this format. I like his choice of music generally anyway (mostly not stuff I'd choose to listen to, but almost always interesting), and he's so naturally funny when ad libbing links, but the way he can weave a story through the whole show, both through the music and the links, then set up a payoff/punchline is astounding. It really does feel like a stand-up show structure, but could pass as a perfectly good hour of radio without that through-line as well.

colsimpson

Everybody's having a shipbuilding time!

mrfridge

I think that's the first time I've listened to one of Kitson's shows and been a bit bored. You get the gist after the second track and then it's just a man pretending to do something tedious for another 50 minutes. Which is tedious. Or is that the point? IS THIS ART?!

Having said that, I did listen to Rubber Soul only a couple of weeks ago and realised I don't really like it half as much as I recall. That might have tainted the whole thing a bit more than if it wasn't so fresh in my memory.

Anyway, if he does something like this again I will find him and poke him in the ribs.

jaydee81

Yeah I get your point, I had similar feelings to the finale to his last run.

But also, it's interesting that he's deciding to do something a little bit different with his Resonance shows, and seeing as it was an hour long slot on a community radio station I do feel like dissecting it too much is probably taking it a bit too far


mrfridge

Quote from: jaydee81 on February 15, 2021, 04:05:28 PM
Yeah I get your point, I had similar feelings to the finale to his last run.

But also, it's interesting that he's deciding to do something a little bit different with his Resonance shows, and seeing as it was an hour long slot on a community radio station I do feel like dissecting it too much is probably taking it a bit too far

I really enjoyed the last run and completely fell for the central conceit. I hope he does carry on playing with the format as I'm sure there's loads to be done with live radio.

You're right, it doesn't need dissecting though and it's only because the shows are so consistently great that I thought it worth mentioning. I still enjoyed it, just not as much as usual.

jaydee81

Haha sorry if I seemed dismissive. I'm intrigued by you saying you 'fell for the central conceit.' Which means I might have to delve into dissecting it. The central conceit was him playing with the concept of 'live' as he acknowledges most people listen to records of the show. But the central conceit was a slightly tacked on idea that the show wasn't live, right? With a few clever callbacks in the final show?

mrfridge

Putting this in spoiler tags on the off chance it upsets someone who hasn't listened to the previous shows.

Spoiler alert
I don't think it was tacked on, the entire run was staged from the beginning but presented as live when it was all pre planned. None of the trips out in the camper van, etc actually happen (or if he was in the van he wasn't actually where he said he was). I fell for it in that I believed he had visited all of the places he claimed to have, and that the conversations he had with concerned friends were real.
[close]


lankyguy95

I think that show is on his bandcamp.

sutin

Quote from: lankyguy95 on April 11, 2021, 01:21:18 PM
I think that show is on his bandcamp.

It is but this one is a recording of a different night. Might be of some interest to the more obsessive Kitson fans. I've never totally *got* him to be honest, but I definitely need to delve in more.

iamcoop

Quote from: sutin on April 11, 2021, 01:36:11 PM
It is but this one is a recording of a different night. Might be of some interest to the more obsessive Kitson fans. I've never totally *got* him to be honest, but I definitely need to delve in more.

Thanks for the link pal :)



holyzombiejesus

Hasn't he asked that we not share links to unauthorised stuff?

peanutbutter

Yep, I dont think he minds too much about some older stuff being out there, it's almost unavoidable, but anywhere that can become an easy access source of links (as the Kitson threads  on here tend to become) is probably gonna piss him off and he has asked on here before for stuff to be removed.

Quote from: sutin on April 11, 2021, 01:36:11 PM
I've never totally *got* him to be honest, but I definitely need to delve in more.
What stuff of his do you know? I think he's suffered a bit in the last decade as a result of basically always performing to the same very forgiving audiences everywhere tbh. Like, lots of stuff that's still good, but none of it seems like an especially good entry point.

notjosh

As great as his "proper" shows are, the absolute best way to experience Kitson is to see him live, either at an early work-in-progress for his stand-up shows or compering a mixed bill.[nb]He used to do Up the Creek regularly and often hosts charity gigs, but it's almost all in London.[/nb] His crowd work and ability to ad-lib are second to none.

sutin

Quote from: holyzombiejesus on April 28, 2021, 12:26:10 PM
Hasn't he asked that we not share links to unauthorised stuff?

I have no idea, I don't know much about him at all.

sutin

Saw him live once, it was good but he didn't make me laugh that much. I feel like I should like him more but he doesn't do it for me in the way Stewart Lee or someone does. It was also really dark in the room and he picked on me because my phone lit up in my shirt pocket for like 5 seconds (forgot to turn it off). I, um, didn't like that, he made me feel pretty uncomfortable (and then I was glad the room was so dark and no one could see me).

Scrapey Fish

Quote from: sutin on April 28, 2021, 03:48:49 PM
Saw him live once, it was good but he didn't make me laugh that much. I feel like I should like him more but he doesn't do it for me in the way Stewart Lee or someone does. It was also really dark in the room and he picked on me because my phone lit up in my shirt pocket for like 5 seconds (forgot to turn it off). I, um, didn't like that, he made me feel pretty uncomfortable (and then I was glad the room was so dark and no one could see me).

He's a phenomenal compere, the best in the business, though I sympathise with your experience - he can be quite brutal on people with phones

sutin

#350
It was fine, I just wasn't expecting it and it's not like I was using the damn thing (or even holding it). He said "what are you doing? I'm not mad, I just want to know what you were doing" and wouldn't drop it when I wouldn't respond (i'm terrified of talking in front of crowds). Absolutely no need. Like I said, the room was abnormally dark so no one could see me, avoiding a properly embarrassing situation. Even my friends sitting beside me didn't realise he was talking to me because they didn't see my phone light up (it was through a bloody shirt pocket FFS!).

Does he read CaB?

Tokyo van Ramming

Quote from: sutin on April 28, 2021, 06:00:22 PM
Does he read CaB?

He has an account here and sometimes pops in (might even be in this very thread) to request that we don't dish his work out.

Quote from: sutin on April 28, 2021, 06:00:22 PM
It was fine, I just wasn't expecting it and it's not like I was using the damn thing (or even holding it). He said "what are you doing? I'm not mad, I just want to know what you were doing" and wouldn't drop it when I wouldn't respond (i'm terrified of talking in front of crowds). Absolutely no need. Like I said, the room was abnormally dark so no one could see me, avoiding a properly embarrassing situation. Even my friends sitting beside me didn't realise he was talking to me because they didn't see my phone light up (it was through a bloody shirt pocket FFS!).

Does he read CaB?

I'm going to be a dick here and say that I don't think it's too much to ask to turn your phone off during a performance.

He's incredible at spotting people using them. I was at the Stand in Edinburgh once when he saw someone's face light up by the door at the back of the room. I turned around to look... and the offender was Stu Goldsmith!

sutin

Quote from: Wayman C. McCreery on April 28, 2021, 06:54:40 PM
I'm going to be a dick here and say that I don't think it's too much to ask to turn your phone off during a performance.

Sure, but his reaction was still unjustified. When I didn't respond when he tried to engage with me, he should have dropped the interrogation. He was being a bully (for a minute).

notjosh

Obviously you'll know the tone of the interaction better than I, but it's very common for him to get distracted by very minor things like that, and to want to address them before moving on. He may not have been criticising you even if it felt that way. I've only once seen him be genuinely cross about it, when he broke character during a performance of Tree to have a go at someone on the front row who was consistently using their phone.

mjwilson

Quote from: Wayman C. McCreery on April 28, 2021, 06:54:40 PM
I'm going to be a dick here and say that I don't think it's too much to ask to turn your phone off during a performance.

I always just go on silent, seems like that should be enough.

sutin

Quote from: mjwilson on April 28, 2021, 09:40:29 PM
I always just go on silent, seems like that should be enough.

You'd think! Ah well, if I see him again i'll know.

Lost Oliver

Man, I'd love a copy of Tree. That was absolutely incredible. Was it recorded?

He's incredible at turning his genuine frustration with distractions in the audience into over-the-top performative unreasonableness that's hilarious for everyone else in the room. It's obvious it needles him enough he needs to do something about it, in order to be able to move past, so exaggerating his own reaction seems to be a way of defusing it, like he's pre-mocking himself.

The only time I've seen him do a prepared stand-up show (vs work-in-progress or a play/conceptual show), he latched onto me in a room of 500, when I glanced over my shoulder. "w-w-w-WHAT's going on there?!" Daniel demanded, hands on hips. I made an "everything's cool" face and hand gesture, and felt like I'd escaped a firing squad when he said "fair enough then," and carried on.


(stutter spelled out to indicate the wind-up that allowed my dread to build)

sutin

That's not exactly endearing me to him. Picking on someone in crowd of 500 is bullying, clear and simple.