Roll Over Beethoven - The Beatles Yesterday I went and saw Daniel Kitson's Analog.Ue. on the Lyttelton Stage of the National Theatre. I haven't seen Daniel Kitson perform in over ten years when he rocked up at my student union, Perrier Award already under his belt, and talked at us through the cigarette fug and beer slicks for four hours. He was awkward and stuttering and immensely funny, apparently unscripted, telling stories and tickling funny bones until our stomachs hurt from laughing. So when some fellow theatre geeks asked if I wanted to see one of his storytelling shows I couldn't refuse. There's a really great, detailed review of the show from The Independent here, so go there if you want to know more. For my part all I'll say is that the sound of words in the mouth of Daniel Kitson - full, northern, faltering, expressive, occasionally vulnerable yet curiously commanding - those words are so delicious, they roll around in your head for hours afterwards as you digest their wit and offbeat lyricism and then come to terms with what they actually mean. He is a born storyteller - humane and understanding with an eye for the banal and the epic and the way both are interweaved in each of our lives. And though the truths he tells are sometimes brutal or cruel, he is never those things. And so yesterday afternoon I sat inside the dark, womblike warmth of the Lyttelton room, and I listened to Daniel Kitson's stories and I cried. Not great big melodramatic sobs but the kind of welled up drops that have been sitting inside your chest for ever. If you've seen the show you'll know why I've chosen this song; a perfect transition from storytime to reality, a flutter of humour to help you pick yourself up after Kitson has destroyed you. If you haven't....well, no matter, cos it's a ruddy great track.
