Edinburgh Fringe 2010
It’s Always Right Now, Until Its Later
Daniel Kitson
Genre: Storytelling
Venue: Traverse Theatre
Festival: Edinburgh Fringe
Low Down
Daniel Kitson’s latest offering is breathtakingly good. Not only because its at 1000 in the morning, but because he shows himself as the master craftsman and storyteller. A full house is utterly enthralled by this warm, humane, endearingly honest and deeply insightful writer and performer.
You will be the luckiest person in Edinburgh if you can get a ticket.
Review
Daniel Kitson returns to Traverse 1 at the unheard of hour of ten in the morning, rather than ten at night. It is worth getting up earlier, as Kitson weaves his magic around a set of suspended lightbulbs each of which represents a moment suspended in time.
For Kitson, life is neither predetermined nor fated. Its not random, but rather a series of moments in a deluge of time which continues uninterrupted by the minutiae of our lives. Life lies in the moment, the now, but is told through memories of moments before and after each moment hanging in the air. Sounds complicated but in Kitson’s hands it isn’t.
Two main stories are told separately. They never join and only pass close by fleetingly (getting on and off the bus, of course). Kitson, moves around the stage to explore and expound his views and understanding of human existence. By his standards, Kitson is positively animated, even climbing on a stepladder and a chair to balance precariously in the moment.
His observations about the ordinary and the commonplace are brilliantly insightful, illuminating and investing the details of lives with a wisdom and a wit which are deeply human. He has a generosity towards the human spirit , and a capacity to put into words what we each feel that is heartfelt, insightful and breathtaking.
Kitson cares about the world and the characters he creates in it. His writing is delightful. He is a consummate wordsmith who uses the language with care, intelligence, wit and intuition. Comedic observation at its finest.
Charting the course of two separate lives, Kitson weaves his magic, entrancing and bewitching the crowded auditorium, which hangs on his every word.
The man is a genius. And it is a privilege to watch and hear that genius at work.
