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telegentleman · 7 years

Text

Me and Mr C. by Gary Kitching

Looking at the blurb for Me and Mr C. was the equivalent of Gary Kitching donning a ten gallon hat, spitting chaw and lassoing me like a legless longhorn at a Roughstock rodeo. You got me, partner. Me and Mr C. is Mr Kitching’s rendering, as the press release goes ‘of what it is like to have a voice in your head that explains to you with authority, purpose and well referenced arguments, that you are a worthless piece of shit.’ I’m a little reticent to admit it but the reason my curiosity was so piqued and I found myself texting anyone who might be interested in a one man puppet show all about an internalised dialogue that exhilarates maladaptive behaviours held in a basement in Newcastle was the relatability of the premise. I mean relatable in the neological sense of relating to something and not the etymological sense of the simple relating of. See, I suffer from what is known as the critical inner voice. However, whilst I knew inherently that this was something I needed to see, I had misgivings about my motivation. When you expect art to act as a mirror, confirming your own individual solipsism, well for me at least, I start to hear a voice in my head that says 'You stupid twat.’

youtube

That notwithstanding, I tootled off to my first visit of the Alphabetti Theatre with the attendant hope of watching something and going 'Yes! I get it!’ I was escorted, of course by the nagging murmur of 'Vey is mir! Your main criterion of value is that the thing has to somehow be about you. You doughnut.’ Muffling out that voice as best I could, it didn’t take me long to fall in love with the Alphabetti; the particle board decor of the bar perhaps inexplicably invoking the inexplicably comforting (to me) enigma that is Al Borland. To me it felt like all great venues do; to quote Tom Waits, 'where the roots hang down.’ Subterranean but full of light. Mr. Kitching quickly greeted us all as we took our seats, vaulting into the premise of the show that was to follow. He did so by affecting a caustic snarl and reading some negative reviews of previous gigs.

'This one says “there were some awkward silences.” What, like life?’

He got his laughs for this, however what really struck me was how Kitching’s aggression betrayed a very real vulnerability. Like Charlie Kaufman very eloquently put it in his BAFTA screen writing lecture ’…being upfront about being a limited, struggling human being allows me to be a limited, struggling human being.’ This pre-emptive strike is a mechanism I think a lot of us use. Kitching, after explaining that the entire show would be improvised, introduced the small caveat that this might mean that the show is great but it may also mean that it ends up being shite.

To self-deprecate is to defend but it is synchronous with launching a charm offensive. Kitching had everyone on his side immediately. At the risk of sounding mawkish or in fact ludicrous, there was a real warmth of communal spirit in the room and I for one felt bolstered by the nakedness of the protagonist’s candour. As if to acknowledge the thing and to laugh at it is to free yourself to be allowed to do the work. Freed from the critical voice.

Kitching asked the audience (whose constituents I noted included Suggestibles regulars) to provide offhand items for his 'flat’. His flat, in fact consisted of a Louis XV sofa (though don’t quote me on that. I’m not an antique dealer nor am I an upholsterer, no matter the vicious tattle-tales you might read about me), the acutely creepy puppet, Mr C., and nothing else. Audience members soon filled this up with the knick-knack bric-a-brac of their imagination. We had a fridge stocked with dog food; a settee once owned by Sean Connery (despite already having a Louis XV); a dog, and an aquarium filled with three fish called Jim, Barbara and Terry. No kettle though. One volunteer was asked to pick two songs and another was told that when Kitching reached for his trunk she would have to take the stage and read out post-it notes with words of advice (suggested by the audience) written on them upon hearing Kitching use the prompt 'nice’. All of us were then asked for an example of a grim job to which someone, with a voice that conveyed all the horror of a man still haunted by his past, gloomily rumbled 'roadside Christmas tree seller.’ This evidently could not be trumped (by anyone save for Bill Cosby’s PR manager I’d imagine) and so armed with a few glimmers, Kitching set about drawing the lines to connect up the constellation of a narrative.

Kitching launched himself into his freshly conjured world, clawing like a high wire walker at the air around him to bring to life the scene that we’d all just invented. He skipped to the back of the room where we all imagined his giant aquarium and as he sprinkled invisible flakes into the tank he pointed to the parents of the fish it contained and they each harked out 'Jim!’ then 'Barbara!’ then 'Terry!’ right on cue. Kitching yanked the story into a bizarre realm of sci-fi horror (Robocop meets Pet Cemetery, screenplay by Mary Shelley) as he set about replacing his expired mutt with a robot of his own construct. One of his fish had already died (Terry, we hardly knew ye) so Kitching ad-libbed a brain transplant from fish to robodog. Kitching’s cerebral cortex seemed to be firing with the kind of electrical activity seen in a plasma globe, and if it weren’t already wrenching him (and us innocent bystanders in the audience) into some outlandish terrain he then made the choice to skin the corpse of his dead pooch and re-upholster his brand new monsterrobofishdog. Faster than Dr. Huxtable’s fall from grace, Kitching then mimed watching his dog with a fish brain encircle the room as it did its tank but five minutes ago. This was the first half of the show in précis; a collaboration between a manic stage actor flashing a devilish conspiratorial grin and a hyperactive audience in thrall to the whirling dervish, Stanley-Ipkiss-transformation-into-The Mask, Tasmanian Devil that charged around in front of them.

I took a quick bathroom break and failed to escape the returning Kitching who shouted after me. I felt like a right little-bladdered nimrod stood in front of that sink trying to psyche myself up for the inevitable verbal dressing down I was about to get. My alter ego in the mirror roared at me for being such an idiot, in a scene much like the 'Carpool Lane’ episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm where a stoned Larry David watches his alter ego roar 'TV! TV! That’s what you like! Read a fucking book!’ I walked back into the room as surreptitiously as I could and offered a weak placatory grin when Kitching thanked me for coming back. 'Look everyone! Jesus has come back. Fucking Jesus in glasses.’ Meh, I’ll take that.

The second half was a slightly less deranged occultist/Terry Gilliam nightmare/acid trip affair. That being said, there was an entire scene where Kitching argued with his employer at the roadside Christmas Tree – I want to say office/company? - played by Kitching himself. This oddly reflected the moment that I stood and argued with my reflection in a scene reflecting a scene from a TV show. He offered his boss (himself) a cup of tea but then called back to the fact that the audience hadn’t furnished his kitchen with a kettle. If that doesn’t confuse you, Kitching then pleaded with his employer (played by himself) to leave, to which his employer (himself) said 'I’m not here. I’m in your imagination.’ Meta.

Kitching treat us to an impromptu lesson in heckling, encouraging us to be cavalier with our missives as the three stages of heckling wore on. For the uninitiated, the first stage involves general background clatter to distract the performer. The second stage introduces some verbiage. The third stage is an all out debasement with screams of (to paraphrase one of Kitching’s own examples) 'you fat, balding, Phil-Collins-looking c*nt.’ Whenever Kitching reached for a mic and stand and started in on a weak observational routine this was our cue. Kitching asked us if we’d ordinarily heckle a performer to which everybody, almost aghast at the very notion protested in pure indignation that crikey no, they would not ever dream of such an uncouth act. When their cue arrived though this lying, full-of-shit audience didn’t need to be asked twice, the vicious little buggers. Shouts of 'get off you fat wanker!’ rifled through the din of coughing and shuffling feet and served to further develop the sense that this character was nearing a very volatile demise. Honestly though, despite this all being a kind of schadenfreude at the expense of a pathos-laden character, I was crying with laughter. Maybe I’m a bad person (you are, you worthless piece of shit) but despite this being a superficially enjoyable moment of immature shit-slinging, I couldn’t help but appreciate the linear reach of what Kitching was doing. He was giving adults licence to be despicable without any fear of reprisal, which worked to unify the audience in their raising Cain as naughty school kids whilst simultaneously engendering guilt, empathy and sympathy for the character he was extemporaneously fleshing out.

Kitching reached for his trunk and his volunteer-cum-ersatz psychoanalyst made her way to the stage. Kitching, reaching high anxiety bewailed his Christmas tree sales failures and dropped a 'nice’ bomb. In the tradition of the 'Whose Line’ game from Whose Line is it Anyway? the volunteer took her cue and reached for a post-it note with the arbitrary advice 'Don’t let the bastards grind you down.’ Kitching ad-libbed around this succumbing furthermore to mental anguish. 'I’ve not got anyone. It would be nice to have someone.’ His shrink reached for a post-it note and read out 'You’ve got a big cock.’

The show reached its denouement when Kitching seized his mic and stand one last time. The audience responded with more acerbic heckling until Kitching held Mr. C aloft and began to talk through him, screaming relentlessly that he has no family – that he sees families in parks and cries because he has nothing and deserves nothing. This would be an awkward moment by most standards but it was exacerbated when one audience member failed to register the gravity of this scene. Everybody was silenced by the critical voice incarnate but this one lady who persisted in heckling Kitching with 'Yeah, you’re useless’ and 'Wow, you’re really shit’ which, if nothing else only served to accentuate the tremendous sadness of the character’s breakdown.

Gary Kitching demonstrates a preternatural dexterity in reflecting the contradictory truths in, not just my life as I so hoped he would, but moreover life in general. His improvisation of each show (meaning that this review is in no way a spoiler by the way) lends the performance an instability by proxy. Like a trapeze artist in mid-air he reaches into the unknown and offers you, to revisit Charlie Kaufman 'the experience of watching someone fumble, because I think that’s maybe what art should offer. An opportunity to recognise our common humanity and vulnerability.’

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telegentleman · 9 years

Text

Me and Mr C. by Gary Kitching

Looking at the blurb for Me and Mr C. was the equivalent of Gary Kitching donning a ten gallon hat, spitting chaw and lassoing me like a legless longhorn at a Roughstock rodeo. You got me, partner. Me and Mr C. is Mr Kitching's rendering, as the press release goes 'of what it is like to have a voice in your head that explains to you with authority, purpose and well referenced arguments, that you are a worthless piece of shit.' I'm a little reticent to admit it but the reason my curiosity was so piqued and I found myself texting anyone who might be interested in a one man puppet show all about an internalised dialogue that exhilarates maladaptive behaviours held in a basement in Newcastle was the relatability of the premise. I mean relatable in the neological sense of relating to something and not the etymological sense of the simple relating of. See, I suffer from what is known as the critical inner voice. However, whilst I knew inherently that this was something I needed to see, I had misgivings about my motivation. When you expect art to act as a mirror, confirming your own individual solipsism, well for me at least, I start to hear a voice in my head that says 'You stupid twat.'

youtube

That notwithstanding, I tootled off to my first visit of the Alphabetti Theatre with the attendant hope of watching something and going 'Yes! I get it!' I was escorted, of course by the nagging murmur of 'Vey is mir! Your main criterion of value is that the thing has to somehow be about you. You doughnut.' Muffling out that voice as best I could, it didn't take me long to fall in love with the Alphabetti; the particle board decor of the bar perhaps inexplicably invoking the inexplicably comforting (to me) enigma that is Al Borland. To me it felt like all great venues do; to quote Tom Waits, 'where the roots hang down.' Subterranean but full of light. Mr. Kitching quickly greeted us all as we took our seats, vaulting into the premise of the show that was to follow. He did so by affecting a caustic snarl and reading some negative reviews of previous gigs.

'This one says “there were some awkward silences.” What, like life?'

He got his laughs for this, however what really struck me was how Kitching's aggression betrayed a very real vulnerability. Like Charlie Kaufman very eloquently put it in his BAFTA screen writing lecture '...being upfront about being a limited, struggling human being allows me to be a limited, struggling human being.' This pre-emptive strike is a mechanism I think a lot of us use. Kitching, after explaining that the entire show would be improvised, introduced the small caveat that this might mean that the show is great but it may also mean that it ends up being shite.

To self-deprecate is to defend but it is synchronous with launching a charm offensive. Kitching had everyone on his side immediately. At the risk of sounding mawkish or in fact ludicrous, there was a real warmth of communal spirit in the room and I for one felt bolstered by the nakedness of the protagonist's candour. As if to acknowledge the thing and to laugh at it is to free yourself to be allowed to do the work. Freed from the critical voice.

Kitching asked the audience (whose constituents I noted included Suggestibles regulars) to provide offhand items for his 'flat'. His flat, in fact consisted of a Louis XV sofa (though don't quote me on that. I'm not an antique dealer nor am I an upholsterer, no matter the vicious tattle-tales you might read about me), the acutely creepy puppet, Mr C., and nothing else. Audience members soon filled this up with the knick-knack bric-a-brac of their imagination. We had a fridge stocked with dog food; a settee once owned by Sean Connery (despite already having a Louis XV); a dog, and an aquarium filled with three fish called Jim, Barbara and Terry. No kettle though. One volunteer was asked to pick two songs and another was told that when Kitching reached for his trunk she would have to take the stage and read out post-it notes with words of advice (suggested by the audience) written on them upon hearing Kitching use the prompt 'nice'. All of us were then asked for an example of a grim job to which someone, with a voice that conveyed all the horror of a man still haunted by his past, gloomily rumbled 'roadside Christmas tree seller.' This evidently could not be trumped (by anyone save for Bill Cosby's PR manager I'd imagine) and so armed with a few glimmers, Kitching set about drawing the lines to connect up the constellation of a narrative.

Kitching launched himself into his freshly conjured world, clawing like a high wire walker at the air around him to bring to life the scene that we'd all just invented. He skipped to the back of the room where we all imagined his giant aquarium and as he sprinkled invisible flakes into the tank he pointed to the parents of the fish it contained and they each harked out 'Jim!' then 'Barbara!' then 'Terry!' right on cue. Kitching yanked the story into a bizarre realm of sci-fi horror (Robocop meets Pet Cemetery, screenplay by Mary Shelley) as he set about replacing his expired mutt with a robot of his own construct. One of his fish had already died (Terry, we hardly knew ye) so Kitching ad-libbed a brain transplant from fish to robodog. Kitching's cerebral cortex seemed to be firing with the kind of electrical activity seen in a plasma globe, and if it weren't already wrenching him (and us innocent bystanders in the audience) into some outlandish terrain he then made the choice to skin the corpse of his dead pooch and re-upholster his brand new monsterrobofishdog. Faster than Dr. Huxtable's fall from grace, Kitching then mimed watching his dog with a fish brain encircle the room as it did its tank but five minutes ago. This was the first half of the show in précis; a collaboration between a manic stage actor flashing a devilish conspiratorial grin and a hyperactive audience in thrall to the whirling dervish, Stanley-Ipkiss-transformation-into-The Mask, Tasmanian Devil that charged around in front of them.

I took a quick bathroom break and failed to escape the returning Kitching who shouted after me. I felt like a right little-bladdered nimrod stood in front of that sink trying to psyche myself up for the inevitable verbal dressing down I was about to get. My alter ego in the mirror roared at me for being such an idiot, in a scene much like the 'Carpool Lane' episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm where a stoned Larry David watches his alter ego roar 'TV! TV! That's what you like! Read a fucking book!' I walked back into the room as surreptitiously as I could and offered a weak placatory grin when Kitching thanked me for coming back. 'Look everyone! Jesus has come back. Fucking Jesus in glasses.' Meh, I'll take that.

The second half was a slightly less deranged occultist/Terry Gilliam nightmare/acid trip affair. That being said, there was an entire scene where Kitching argued with his employer at the roadside Christmas Tree – I want to say office/company? - played by Kitching himself. This oddly reflected the moment that I stood and argued with my reflection in a scene reflecting a scene from a TV show. He offered his boss (himself) a cup of tea but then called back to the fact that the audience hadn't furnished his kitchen with a kettle. If that doesn't confuse you, Kitching then pleaded with his employer (played by himself) to leave, to which his employer (himself) said 'I'm not here. I'm in your imagination.' Meta.

Kitching treat us to an impromptu lesson in heckling, encouraging us to be cavalier with our missives as the three stages of heckling wore on. For the uninitiated, the first stage involves general background clatter to distract the performer. The second stage introduces some verbiage. The third stage is an all out debasement with screams of (to paraphrase one of Kitching's own examples) 'you fat, balding, Phil-Collins-looking c*nt.' Whenever Kitching reached for a mic and stand and started in on a weak observational routine this was our cue. Kitching asked us if we'd ordinarily heckle a performer to which everybody, almost aghast at the very notion protested in pure indignation that crikey no, they would not ever dream of such an uncouth act. When their cue arrived though this lying, full-of-shit audience didn't need to be asked twice, the vicious little buggers. Shouts of 'get off you fat wanker!' rifled through the din of coughing and shuffling feet and served to further develop the sense that this character was nearing a very volatile demise. Honestly though, despite this all being a kind of schadenfreude at the expense of a pathos-laden character, I was crying with laughter. Maybe I'm a bad person (you are, you worthless piece of shit) but despite this being a superficially enjoyable moment of immature shit-slinging, I couldn't help but appreciate the linear reach of what Kitching was doing. He was giving adults licence to be despicable without any fear of reprisal, which worked to unify the audience in their raising Cain as naughty school kids whilst simultaneously engendering guilt, empathy and sympathy for the character he was extemporaneously fleshing out.

Kitching reached for his trunk and his volunteer-cum-ersatz psychoanalyst made her way to the stage. Kitching, reaching high anxiety bewailed his Christmas tree sales failures and dropped a 'nice' bomb. In the tradition of the 'Whose Line' game from Whose Line is it Anyway? the volunteer took her cue and reached for a post-it note with the arbitrary advice 'Don't let the bastards grind you down.' Kitching ad-libbed around this succumbing furthermore to mental anguish. 'I've not got anyone. It would be nice to have someone.' His shrink reached for a post-it note and read out 'You've got a big cock.'

The show reached its denouement when Kitching seized his mic and stand one last time. The audience responded with more acerbic heckling until Kitching held Mr. C aloft and began to talk through him, screaming relentlessly that he has no family – that he sees families in parks and cries because he has nothing and deserves nothing. This would be an awkward moment by most standards but it was exacerbated when one audience member failed to register the gravity of this scene. Everybody was silenced by the critical voice incarnate but this one lady who persisted in heckling Kitching with 'Yeah, you're useless' and 'Wow, you're really shit' which, if nothing else only served to accentuate the tremendous sadness of the character's breakdown.

Gary Kitching demonstrates a preternatural dexterity in reflecting the contradictory truths in, not just my life as I so hoped he would, but moreover life in general. His improvisation of each show (meaning that this review is in no way a spoiler by the way) lends the performance an instability by proxy. Like a trapeze artist in mid-air he reaches into the unknown and offers you, to revisit Charlie Kaufman 'the experience of watching someone fumble, because I think that's maybe what art should offer. An opportunity to recognise our common humanity and vulnerability.'

#garykitching thealphabettitheatre improv comedy necomedy newcastle

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