August 17, 2026 at Queen's Hall
A man stands on a stage and tells some stories. It might take an hour and forty, he says, but he’s not sure as he’s only said this all the way through one time before and he was alone and in a basement.
It’s 2011 and I’ve just performed a pretty bad 10 minutes of open mic comedy in a pub called The Hob in South East London. The owners, Em and Ron, tell me to stick around and see the next show. It’s a work in progress, they tell me. I have nothing better to do.
It’s 2026. Edinburgh. Daniel Kitson is doing this for the money, he says. Which is an improvement, as he used to do it for the attention. But he’d probably rather be making pottery. ‘No offence,’ he says, ‘but it’s more fulfilling than…’ he gestures. ‘This’. We laugh.
It’s late autumn, 2025 and I’m in a work in progress show. It’s going well, but the comedian has to try his best to finish on time, he tells us, as there’s a flamenco class about to start upstairs and he’s about to become inaudible. ‘You know, sometimes I’d rather be doing pottery,’ he says. We laugh.
Like a number of Kitson’s other shows, this one arrives in fragments, that eventually incorporate into a collection of wholes. This requires that he dance around time and space, so that one minute he’s on a train platform in London looking at a man in a racist t-shirt, the next a street in Melbourne mourning some figs.
An audience member in the front row pulls on their jacket. Kitson asks if the show is running too long for them? He won’t be offended if they have to leave, he says, but – he taps his nose – it does all come together in the end.
Em and Ron let me sneak into the next Monday night work in progress, even though it’s sold out. ‘The show should be ready about this time next year,’ the comedian tells us. ‘I’ve written all the words already, but it takes a really long time to come up with a title.’ We laugh. I like the way he says things that don’t even seem like jokes, but they’re definitely funny. If I were to ever write a review of one of his performances, I suppose I’d say he had an impressively natural delivery.
‘When did comedy stop being about having a laugh? When did it become about thoughts and feelings?’ It’s 2026, we’re in The Queen’s Hall in Edinburgh and he’s on stage doing a voice. He does voices now, and even one impression. ‘And to be honest, i have more time for those people… than you cunts.’ We all laugh. I note that written down, this doesn’t necessarily read like a joke.
I spend quite a few Monday evenings in 2011 watching Daniel Kitson’s work in progress shows. One night he tells us that all stand-up comedy should be entirely improvised, otherwise it’s shit. But last week, he informs us, he thought completely the opposite. He might be my new favourite comedian.
I spend numerous evenings in early 2026 watching Daniel Kitson’s work in progress shows. One night his neighbours are in, unexpectedly, and he uses his disappointment at this as both a comedic fulcrum and a witty finale.
‘Daniel Kitson?’ Elizabeth is saying, in absolute shock. ‘Daniel Kitson?!’
‘Yeah,’ I say.
‘Daniel Kitson is considered one of the best comedians of his generation?’ She can’t believe what I’ve just claimed.
I nod. Elizabeth had a hip replacement a few months ago so I’ve been walking her dog, Rudy. He’s my new favourite dog. ‘I used to see Daniel Kitson all the time, compering at the Comedy Cafe in Shoreditch,’ she tells me. ‘Maybe twenty years ago,’ she says. ‘He used to pull his pants up to his nipples and swear a lot.’
‘Yeah,’ I say, sounding like an absolute idiot. ‘I believe that is now considered one of his eras.’
In the Queen’s Hall, in 2026, Kitson’s stories are starting to coalesce. He’s kicked a duck and helped a woman who’s had a fall. He’s endured an unwanted musical performance and argued with a podcasting friend about his ticket pricing. And everything is landing. The crowd is all-in, even if the show’s longer than advertised in the programme and it’s getting late.
He tells us he took his foot off the gas, creatively, five to ten years ago, but I don’t know if the audience agrees. Not every show is for every audience member. For instance, I liked the one about the drawers.
He says he’s spent the last twenty five years deliberately whittling his audience down, since ‘his peak’, back when he was still actively rejecting mainstream success. But then he doesn’t do the bit that used to come after, about ‘the stripper song’. That’s okay. It wasn’t my favourite bit. (Although I do wish he’d kept in the barber story.)
It’s hard for me to be objective, to be honest, because I’m so familiar with the words he’s saying. He had promised there would be beeps, where someone’s name should be, that there’d be ambient music, and maybe even glitchy remixes of previous performances of this material. There’s none of that, but it doesn’t matter – it’s all, as he says ironically at one point, ‘good gear’.
Danoraks. That’s what he’s calling people who come to numerous work in progress shows. Danoraks. Right… Okay.
It’s 2012, and the show is finished. He’s titled it Where Once Was Wonder. I’m seeing it at midnight in The Stand in Edinburgh. He comes on and immediately insults a guide dog. The audience takes against him. I hope he eventually wins them over, because I brought friends along and I want them to maybe think he’s their new favourite comedian. (He doesn’t. They don’t.)
Not every show is for every audience member.
It’s 2023 and a man has stepped off the stage for a moment to hand out scripts. It’s 2013 and a man is standing atop a giant fibreglass tree. It’s 2018 and a man is on stage telling stories. It’s 2012 and I’m in Regent’s Park, seeing the show again, this time there’s no guide dog to insult, it’s great and as I leave I hear someone say, ‘I think he’s my new favourite comedian.’ It’s 2019 and a man is standing on stage in front of some drawers. The critics apparently don’t like this one, but I think it’s good.
You don’t know me! You don’t know me… I go to the work in progress shows of lots of comedians.
It’s 2026 and in Edinburgh the audience are applauding Kitson’s latest show, which he’s called Thrum. I wonder how I would have reacted to it if I hadn’t seen all the work in progress that led to this final form. I can’t write a properly objective review of this specific performance, I think, as I’ve watched this material develop over months and months.
But much like all the elements he’s chosen to keep in the show, the performance itself emits feeling (to paraphrase the comedian one last time).
I listen to the audience chatting as they shuffle out of the venue. They loved it. Not everyone – not every show is for every audience member. But the audience, mostly, did love it. And I was a part of the audience.
And I’m pretty sure that at least one person in here tonight has a new favourite comedian.
Sarah Stringer