It’s an interesting model for his show. He’s only streaming it for a week, he’s doing across three time zones (London, New York and Melbourne but basically you could book any of them; I got tickets for the Melbourne show at 12:00 today) and there are a limited number of tickets on sale. This gives it the fell of being a unique event with a limited capacity, the intention being to make it feel as close as possible to being in an environment watching something with only a couple of hundred people while we’re all in lockdown (not in an attempt to be elitist or contrary but to recreate that “going to a small club” feeling if possible).
The show itself is one from 2011 that he’s only just got around to editing. For those who aren’t familiar with Kitson, he’s very much regarded as the comedian’s comedian and eschews television appearances in favour of live shows only. There are very few recordings of his previous shows available (he sells a number of audio copies of some previous shows through his site and has one show available for rent through Vimeo) so even an old Kitson show is new to most people. His work alternates between more stand-up based and shows which are more of storytelling experience (albeit very funny ones). I went to him live twice last year (and wrote about one of those shows previously) and am always up for seeing more.
Kitson bookended the show with a live-streamed intro and goodbye and this gave it an appropriately intimate sense. You could see that a number of other people were watching via a counter in the top corner but, given that we all live on video calls for much of our days now, the intro creates the feeling that you’re on call directly with him. The show itself, The Interminable Suicide of Gregory Church, is one of the story-telling based shows and showcases all the things that are key to the appeal of Kitson - a strong sense of crafting that goes into the story, a use of language that is both funny and immensely pleasing and moments of ramshackle distraction and improvisation that prove that even when he’s rambling and riffing, he’s still very funny.
Overall, I’d say this experiment in streaming worked really well in trying to combine both worlds. Longer form comedy needs that audience interaction (especially someone like Kitson who reacts and responds to what’s happening in the audience) so combining a live intro with a pre-recorded show is a good way of trying to bridge gap in the current “new normal” (yeah, I’m as sick of that phrase as everyone else but it does the trick).
The shows for this week are sold out but he’s planning on releasing the video of the show at a later date. When he does, I’d recommend giving it a watch; after all, he’s a comedian that you’re not going to come across if you’re not looking for him.
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