Sunday, September 16, 2007

C-90 Review

Gotta go hit the dancefloor at Earthdance while the sun is shining, but first here is a review of a comedy performance I saw last night. Might add more later, but this is the 350ish words the mag allows me. He tours, so keep an eye out for him. Lovely and funny stuff.



C-90

Daniel Kitson’s C-90 is an unusual blend of story-telling and stand-up comedy. It’s exactly the kind unexpected performance you expect to see at The Playhouse’s Adventures season. It’s eccentric, it’s off-kilter, it’s funny, warm and snurgy. (Someone had to invent a word to replace quirky, so there you have it).

The Yorkshire comedian takes to the stage and launches immediately into the story of Henry who works in the dusty anachronism of a lost mixtape archive. He is fascinated with the idea of mixtapes, the love and care that has gone into them, the fact that someone has invested so much time and thought creating this unique musical gift for another individual human being. He’s categorised and archived thousands of these lost gems without ever having listened to a single one of them, because he doesn’t care much for music. He receives the first mixtape that has ever been personally addressed to him and a Pandora’s box opens; a strange little place filled with misfit characters unfurls before our ears.

Isolate some sections and you’d swear you were listening to pure stand up comedy with the gags hitting the comic sweet spot with precision timing. Isolate yet others and you were being fed the thoughts and ideas of an old time story teller. Through it all you get the impression that Daniel Kitson spends a lot of time looking around at the peripheral people who populate our world. For example the other main character is the lollipop lady at a school kids’ crossing who left university to become a lollipop lady because she sees it as a good and noble job despite what others think. Like Henry, she is a gorgeous creation, her character a slow moving kaleidoscope of endearing foibles.

In a jagged and cynical world the laughs that performers like Daniel Kitson give to us are to be treasured.

At The Playhouse, Sydney Opera House until 30 September.

LEE BEMROSE

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I LOVE Daniel Kitson. He is one of the funniest men EVA!!!!!11

Shut it with the faggy new look thing also too as well - this is what my blog used to look like :)

Lee Bemrose said...

I'm a bit mystified by the mysterious 11 after the entirely unnecessary BOMBARDMENT of !'s in your comment. Seriously.

But yeah. He's a funny fucker. Really loved the gentleness of his humour in this show too. I'm going to try to see it again.

Funny too about the faggy blog look. I guess we have the same taste in faggy-looking blogs.