Daniel Kitson

Daniel Kitson returns to Brighton Festival with a new stand-up show about the memory, the imagination and the dwindling distance between the two.

‘This is a very specific point in time. I’ve been waiting to have the idea for this show for weeks, for months. A space held open in my head waiting for the idea. For months. I’ve done previews and I’ve booked the tour and I’ve stared at the internet and I’ve made chicken and I’ve tried not to worry. But the idea has not come and I have worried. I’ve worried and doubted and waited more and more and more.

But then today, having dropped my dad off at the train station and met my friends for some coffee whilst driving home to write this, overdue, brochure copy – dreading the thought of heaving half lies and optimistic promises into something vaguely intriguing but not developmentally restrictive, half way home – it happened. Somewhere between East London and South London – It arrived. The Idea. Just like that. Like a child, late home from school oblivious to the worry and the panic and the phonecalls. It just walked in and sat down like it wasn’t even a big deal. And now, I’m in my bedroom typing this, because the boy who lives next door is playing the James Bond theme on what I assume to be a trumpet.

And you have to trust me. Two hours ago I didn’t have the idea. Now I do. And it’s going to be good.’

Daniel Kitson Feb 2013