One Single Extra Show of Dot. Dot. Dot.

Hello,

Hello to everyone.

Hello to you all. All of you.

I’m very sleepy at the moment and frankly, i’d much rather be asleep than typing this stuff into squarespace like a flipping plonker. BUT. There’s an extra show of Dot.Dot.Dot. on Tuesday December 1st. at 8pm from the Union Chapel in London.

It’ll be the last time i do the show and its quite lovely to be doing it there.

You can get tickets and more details about it all at the following link.

https://www.unionchapel.org.uk/venue/whats-on/daniel-kitson-dot-dot-dot

There you go.

And Now

BEDTIME!

A Tour Of Empty Theatres.

Right.

 So.

 I am writing a new show which I’m going to tour in November. Here’s the blurb.

Dot. Dot. Dot.

A new show for empty theatres.

I have not been operating within the guidelines and I have not been guided by the science and I have not come out the other side stronger or wiser or better for the experience. I didn’t eat out to help out and I didn’t become a parent and I have not made use of a reciprocal travel corridor. I haven’t moved out of London and I haven’t volunteered for anything and I haven’t attended a socially distanced outdoor performance of Educating Rita.  I didn’t keep going to work and I didn’t work remotely and I did not use this time to work on my physique. I haven’t done laps of my garden and I haven’t put myself in harms way and I have done nothing to support the British hospitality industry. I did not miss out on medical treatment. I did not learn a language. I did not postpone a wedding. I did not book a staycation in Cornwall or the Lakes or somewhere on the Kent coast. I didn’t march and I didn’t go swimming and I didn’t get tested and I did not “read more”. I’ve not been on a boat. I’ve not been shielding, I’ve not been struggling with childcare, I’ve not been playing football on Tuesdays, I’ve not been killed and I’ve not been attending gatherings of up to six households. I haven’t lost my job, I haven’t attended a funeral, I haven’t used a foodbank and I haven’t touched my parents since Christmas.

Daniel Kitson presents his account of six ridiculous and devastating months, experienced largely from a safe distance, almost immediately misremembered and retold here so inaccurately as to be, very nearly fictional. Conceived and written specifically to be performed in and streamed from empty theatres with audience capacity limited to that of each venue, this will hopefully be a lot more fun than it sounds.

So there you go. 

For the avoidance of doubt, these shows will be performed in and streamed from empty theatres with tickets limited to the capacity of each venue meaning that people will be able to watch from anywhere in the country or indeed the world as long as they are awake at the right time and have bought a ticket.

Now, obviously, whilst theatres continue to be, largely, buggered, there are, currently, moves towards reopening in socially distanced formations and reduced capacities and so on and some of you may be thinking

 “Hang on big guy* I’ve had my fill of streams, I’m absolutely honking** to be in the same room as the Dan Dan Man*** and the regs**** say its ticketty dicketty*****, so what gives?”

 So, there’s a combination of factors here, I’ve been excited by the potential of this idea since late July and to be honest, it feels like a unique opportunity to make something new specifically for this particular and odd context, rather than produce a compromised version of something else. And whilst most venues are understandably keen to get work and audiences back into the building, in whatever way they can, this idea puts a live show in the space, means the theatre can sell tickets to full capacity and also keeps the stuff accessible to those of us who are either unable to attend in person or uneasy with the idea of doing so but still want to experience stuff and support venues.

 A couple of important things. Firstly, please buy one ticket per person rather than, per household -  the show is still being written and may develop in a direction where it is best experienced individually on individual devices. Secondly, the way this will work is that you’ll receive an email upon booking to confirm your tickets, you’ll then receive a second email a few days before the show giving you some technical advice, should you need it and then, on the day of the show, an hour before the performance, you’ll receive a third email containing a link to the stream and a password. You go to the link, you enter the password and that’s it.

 All tickets will be £10 (except the previews at The Trades Club in Hebden Bridge which are £7) and go on sale Monday September 14th, at noon, UK time.

 Here are the dates and relevant links for tickets/more information.

PREVIEWS

These shows will be rickety and not quite finished but shouldn’t be absolutely awful.

Trades Club, Hebden Bridge – October 26th ,27th ,28th

 https://thetradesclub.com/dkddd

TOUR

Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh – November 1st and 2nd –

https://lyceum.org.uk/whats-on/production/daniel-kitson-dot-dot-dot

Everyman Theatre, Liverpool -  November 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th  -

https://www.everymanplayhouse.com/whats-on/dot.-dot.-dot.

Theatr Clywd, Mold – November 8th,

https://www.theatrclwyd.com/event/dot-dot-dot

The Playhouse, Nottingham – November 9th

https://www.nottinghamplayhouse.co.uk/whats-on/comedy/dot-dot-dot-daniel-kitson/

The Old Market, Brighton – November 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th

https://www.theoldmarket.com/shows/daniel-kitson-dot-dot-dot

The Lawrence Batley Theatre, Huddersfield – November 16th, 17th

https://www.thelbt.org/shows/daniel-kitson-dot-dot-dot/

Tobacco Factory Theatres, Bristol – November 19th, 20th, 21st

 https://tobaccofactorytheatres.com/shows/daniel-kitsons-dot-dot-dot

Home, Manchester – November 24th, 25th, 26th

https://homemcr.org/production/dot-dot-dot/

Torch Theatre, Milford Haven – November 27th

https://www.torchtheatre.co.uk/dot-dot-dot/

So that’s it.

I’m quite excited by it all, to be honest. 

One final thing, I was also talking to the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough about this tour, but in the end decided that I’d rather make something specific for the round rather than trying to restage this show, so hopefully there’ll be something happening early next year both there and potentially, in the Royal Exchange in Manchester in the meantime, both of those theatres are amazing places very much worthy of your support.

Right.

Done.

* Thank you.

** Eager/Keen

*** Daniel Kitson.

**** Regulations

***** Boo.

We Go Again.

Okey doke.

If you’re interested in the screenings of The Interminable Suicide of Gregory Church please do me a sweet, sweet, solid and read this whole email before clicking on anything.

So, if for reasons related to spam filters or lack of interest you haven’t received the previous emails towards the end of last week and remain unaware of the kerfuffle, you can get fully up to date by reading back over the last few posts on the NEWS* page of my website.  

But in brief, I put tickets for some screenings of an old show on sale, the ticketing site (in spite of a warning, I might add, actually**) underestimated the scale and voracity of the DK2000 marketplace™ and the site crashed in a very unseemly fashion for a few hours until we took the shows off sale on Friday night in order to find a solution.

IF YOU BOUGHT TICKETS ON FRIDAY - THEY ARE STILL VALID.

That much you possibly already know but from here on in, it’s fresh info.

The ticketing site, Citizen Ticket, got in touch on Friday night. Apologising a lot for the debacle, quite graciously expressing regret and embarrassment and essentially asking for the opportunity to sort it all out. They had plans to work through the weekend,  implement changes and perform some “load tests” through Saturday night and Sunday morning and were basically very keen to finish the job.  

Now, without wanting to flap my dangler about, the DK2000 marketplace ™  has, over the years, caused various, pretty large scale, venues and organisations to collapse temporarily under a relatively brief but pretty hefty spike of traffic. Those venues and organisations have then taken steps and made changes and been able to cope afterwards.

I am aware that Citizen Ticket doesn’t look like the slickest of websites, and primarily seems to be populated by online life drawing classes but there is a lot that I like about them as a  platform. Their booking fee is pretty low for ticket buyers. They pay out very speedily, so the money can get to where it needs to be within days. I, personally, can instantly confirm OR DENY refund requests. Ticket holders can transfer their tickets to other people. There’s something about planting trees. They’ve worked through the weekend to get on to of this particular shtorm***.

So – we are going to try again.

They’ve not only increased the capacity of the site and will have people monitoring the traffic in real time but they’ve also put a queueing thing in place – like at the supermarket websites – you’ll get a place in the queue, you’ll be told how many people are in front of you and whether there are still tickets left. You’ll be able to have that window open on your browser whilst continuing to work in a separate browser window and when it’s your turn it will, apparently, make a little noise and then you’ll have five minutes to proceed into the site.

Once you’re in the site, you can take you time.

So – in terms of what tickets are left – there are some left for the London shows. LOADS left for the Australia shows and the US shows were never activated on Friday so all those tickets are still available.

It is VERY likely that the London shows will sell out way before the others do, if indeed they do. So, I would remind you that you can watch any of the shows from any location, which is to say – You can watch the 9pm Australia shows in the UK at noon. Should that suit you.

I would also take this chance to reiterate that these shows are not your only chance to see this show. I may well screen it again in this way for the Tobacco Factory Theatre in the not too distant future and I will certainly release it through Vimeo at some point, I imagine. Pretty much anyone who wants to see it will get a chance to see it. And there will be a number of releases of other work in the coming months, both old and new, digital and (I think) physical.

Finally, if you’ll forgive me for repeating myself, I’d just like to say again that this way of releasing shows (capped screenings with tickets released at a specific time) isn’t the product of my contraryist egotism****. It is, I genuinely believe, a practical and exciting model for releasing work in a way that is flexible and sustainable at a time when almost every existing model of making stuff, is buggerooed*****.

I know that having a specific time creates a kerfuffle but having a specific time seems fairer to me than having tickets go on sale before half the mailing list has opened the email or even got out of bed.

Right.

All that being said.

Tickets will go back on sale on Monday 18th May at 9am Local time. Which is to say, Melbourne shows will go on sale at 9am in Melbourne, UK 9am in London and New York will go on sale 9am in New York.

9 am Monday morning seemed best to me, because that way you can have a queuing window open whilst you work rather than sitting by your computer for a couple of hours on a Sunday afternoon.

Here is the link, you’ll need.

https://www.citizenticket.co.uk/events/daniel-kitson/

Obviously if it goes wrong again, you’d be well within your rights to unsubscribe instantly, burn your DK2000 Marketplace ™ tracksuit and spend up to an hour wishing me ill. But fingers crossed, that can be avoided. Genuinely, thanks for bearing with it all, I reckon we’ll get there. I’ve just today exported the final edit of the show and it’s pretty nice, I think.

So that’s something.

GOODBYE FOREVER

Daniel

*It’s news about me, not the actual news. Ther’s better places for that.

** Actually. Okay?

***A useful new contraction of an apposite phrase in order to bypass spam filters.

****Good name for a band.

*****High end theatre lingo.

Ticket Disaster

Well.

What a kerfuffle.

It’s safe to say that the Citizen Ticket website has not been able to handle the spike in traffic generated by people wanting tickets. Obviously this is hugely frustrating for all concerned. I know a good number of you have spent a good whack of time trying to buy tickets, I myself have spent a good whack of time setting the shows up and the people at Citizen Ticket have spent a good whack of time trying to alter their systems in order to fix it all.

So firstly, there are still lots and lots of tickets available. Obviously, I’m as frustrated by people not being able to buy those tickets as the people who are currently unable to buy the tickets but to clarify, this problem has not been caused by the capping of ticket numbers – there are plenty of tickets available, there’s nearly 1000 a day, for a week and there are still plenty available – it has been caused by the ticketing site being unable to handle the traffic, crashing in a variety of ways and meaning that people have been unable to access the tickets.

There's been some quite spicy nuggets of criticism heading my way, to be honest. So, to clarify, the idea of capping the ticket numbers is not contrayism designed to serve my ego or make any of you jump through hoops, or apparently, in one remarkable case to lose a job. The idea is to create a model for raising money and making work that is both exciting and sustainable. . It’s genuinely not meant to irritate you. The idea is to create a way of releasing work on a fairly regular basis over the coming months that is flexible and sustainable and robust enough to consistently support a couple of charities with something close to a steady and reliable income. Also the cap will change according to the event,  there could be late night work in progress stuff for a hundred people or a more substantial run of something finished or, indeed a one off show with a large capacity but the whole point is that it can and will be repeated.

Also, crucially, these capped shows aren’t the only way that things will be released, they’ll be on Vimeo and Bandcamp as well, like the other stuff already on my website.

These Gregory Church screenings are meant to be an exciting bit of fun.

Obviously today has been the opposite of that for most people involved.

So.

This is what we’re going to do.

1 -  The shows have come off sale on the Citizen Ticket site.

2 – Those of you who managed to buy tickets will still have those tickets to the shows you booked for.

3 – I will set the shows up on a different ticketing platform over the next 36 hours

4 – I will send another email on Sunday with the details of how to buy tickets.

5 -  The shows will go ahead as planned.

I hope that’s clear.

Sorry again for all the wasted time and frustrated desire and for inadvertently ruining your Friday. I’ll be in touch on Sunday with more details but now I need to get back to the edit of the film.

I’m currently trying to colour match some footage of me stuttering spectacularly.

Remarkable stuff.