Holidays. I hate them. I mean I hate work so it’s nice to be off work but I don’t really like going anywhere. Since I was always single I was traveling by myself which was always awful.
Since starting comedy back in 2011 I used my holidays to do gigs. For the past three years that mostly means using them to do the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
But this year my partner and I (who is also a comedian) agreed to have a non-comedy holiday. Just go somewhere and not do any gigs. Just walk around, do tourist things.
(I know so boring).
During our four day visit to London on our non-comedy holiday. We went to two stand-up comedy shows, a comedy film, and a comedy play. So we really nailed the non-comedy thing.
We managed to get two tickets to Daniel Kitson work in progress show. It was in Angel comedy club at the Bill Murray bar. Sadly despite looking I couldn’t find the Dan Ankroyd barbecue pit or the Jim Belushi Gym.
Being honest I only heard about Daniel, never seen any of his work. He is very underground shunning any mainstream attention. My girlfriend is a fan of him and happy to sit through stuff to make her happy. Except Bridget Jones 2 and her smear test.
Arriving at the venue we were greeted by, Kevin O’Connell. Kev is a young comedian from Ireland who betrayed his country by going to England to further his comedy career and to finish his collection of retro Coke cans. Kev is also the first person in real life who’s said they have read this blog.
The club was full (About 50-60 people). It was late (10.30) and sweaty. Daniel casually walked to the stage in shorts and a t-shirt. He had a little desk where he put his 40 pages of notes on and told us it would take 1 hour and 40 minutes to get through it.
He tears into his pages almost like reading a novel out loud. Through the story, Daniel starts seven or eight narratives about various things in his life. Like Living alone, Isis and getting a seat in a restaurant by yourself and kept them all going throughout the show.
There wasn’t much in the way of crowd interaction. Expect close to the end where you got very angry when he heard someone talking.
Being honest I hate when people read off notes and this was closer to storytelling than stand-up. I know that’s is a contentious issue dividing comedy into sections. I can hear someone now “Who are you to divide comedy into groups? Bet your pro-Segregation, you racist bastard”.
But it was funny in places and I was engaged throughout the almost two-hour length of the show.
Afterward, I asked the mother of my hamster was this typical of Daniel’s work?
She said no, his regular stand-up is completely different. I would definitely like to check out one his “normal” show via his website or in person.
Which is clearly a sign I liked his work. Becuase after seeing Rob Beckett live, I never want to see his face again.
Come see MC The Battle of The Axe in Temple Bar, Dublin on 13/07/17 from 9 pm.
The Cost Of A Bad Gig 
He was really only reading from notes in the last few wip shows as he was furiously writing to put it all together and in many ways it was just a case of getting through it and hearing it out loud.. If anything he had too much material to fit into the time because in all the earlier ones he was doing 90 minutes easily whilst leaving out multiple things that he did at other times.
I also felt it was closer to storytelling when he read it out, but that wasn’t what it had been like when he was musing out loud. I would imagine the finished thing will be somewhere in between.
I agree on RB. Most disappointed I’ve ever been with a comedy show.
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Thanks for reading and leaving the reply. I hate anyone think I was being negative. I did enjoy and like I said I gladly go back to his other stuff.
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