A Possible Ghost Story at the Actual Globe.

Cooooooeeeeeee.

So this is an exciting bit of fun time good news.

I’m doing a new thing for two nights at The Globe Theatre in London on the 26th and 27th of October.

A few months ago, when I was booking the outdoor shows for the summer, my friend Will said he had a “contact” at The Globe Theatre. I, promptly swore at him and called him a stupid liar. Then, I went about my day, secure in the knowledge that Will was a stupid liar telling stupid lies and that even if he wasn’t there was no way The actual Globe would want a bald, middle aged man in varifocals, waddling about their glorious *stage, bellowing profanities into their historically significant** auditorium.

Anyway, it turns out that not only was Will telling the truth but also, The actual Globe seemed miraculously amenable to the aforementioned cheapening of what is, lets be honest, a pretty unique and magical*** theatre.

The dates they had available, however, were at the end of October which felt too late in the year to tag on to the Outside tour and besides the nature of the place made me want to write something new, not only that but also, the dates were tantalisingly close to Halloween and I had an idea.

So here’s the official blurb:

Maybe a Ghost Story.

By Daniel Kitson.

I don’t believe in Ghosts and I’ve never been comfortable with (or really, any good at) frightening people.

One Halloween, forty years ago, me, my mum and my brother turned off every light in the house and waited just inside the front door, for my dad to get home from work so we could frighten him. We’d made frightening lanterns from turnips and we’d learned a frightening song about witches.

But when my Dad walked in he wasn’t frightened.

He was, if anything, visibly relieved.

Apparently, having found the house in complete darkness he’d immediately been concerned as to the whereabouts and wellbeing of his family. Which meant that opening the door to find his sons waggling candle lit turnips and singing about being witches was, actually, quite close to comforting.

He said later, that he’d been worried by all the lights being off and I felt bad about that.

I still do.

A new show by Daniel Kitson written specifically for these two nights in this one place that will be funny, might be frightening and may, in spite of everything, be a ghost story.

There you go, that just about sums it up, I’ll be writing it in the next month but tickets go on sale tomorrow at 11am. If you’ve never been to The actual Globe, there’s no stalls, just uncovered standing room for around 600 people (groundlings, apparently) ensconsed by three tiers of covered seating. It’s pretty incredible. Price wise, they’ve been remarkably with standing available for a fiver and seats either 15 or 25 quid which is, frankly, a massive reduction on their normal prices, not only that but they’ve agreed to let you lot**** have priority access for two days along with their list before the shows go on general sale on Friday.

And you get that priority access from 11am tomorrow (Wednesday) at the following link.

https://basket.shakespearesglobe.com/events/30577?promo=135444

There’s no password or anything so don’t spread it around, they’ve held back some sets for general sale as well, so other people will get a fair go at things.

*- And wooden

**- Again, wooden.

***- Please see * and **

****-Valued members of the Daniel Kitson Marketplace.

Outside.

Okay – So I’m doing some outdoor shows over the summer - they’re called Outside.

Most of the shows are on sale now. As in, now. As in, the moment at which you’re reading these words. Classic now. We’ve*** done it this way to try and stagger the flow of people to venue websites rather than a big frantic glut of everyone sitting in wait at the minute of the launch causing the website to crash and making everyone think things have sold out when they haven’t. I think this is currently the least imperfect way of doing it – so we’re trying that. I’ve tried to keep the ticket prices as low as I can, especially because they will all, inevitably, to some extent, be work in progress type things but there is some variation because the costs of doing stuff outdoors vary a fair bit from venue to venue. Also, the theatres need money and I want to buy a hedge. So.

The rest of the shows will go on sale on May 3rd at 11am but I’ll send another email about that on the day with ticket links and so on. As previously mentioned there will be some other dates going in – (Compering big bills in Manchester and St Albans and a couple of solo things here and there) but these should be in place by May 3rd as well.

Here’s the blurb for the solo shows.

Daniel Kitson – Outside.

Daniel hasn’t been on stage for over two years.

And, to be entirely honest, he’s not really missed it.

It is, however, his actual job and everyone’s gone back to work now. So, he’s picked out a comfy pen, bought a new notebook and booked himself a summers worth of outdoor shows to find out whether he can still do his job and what, if anything, he has to say to large groups of people he doesn’t know.

Please note: What with the two year gap and the lack of practice this entire tour will be, to a greater or lesser extent, work in progress and the shows are likely to be relatively rickety affairs. But on the up side, they will sometimes feature support and/or collaboration from Gavin Osborn (when his schedule allows) and Daniel’s already written the question “Do worms feel fear?” in his new notebook, so we should be okay.

Also, if it gets boring – you can just use the time to look at the sky and feel small.

All dates are Solo Shows except for Brighton Comedy Gardens and all Dates are On Sale Now unless otherwise stated and you can find them all on the live shows page.

*- He judges how well he’s played at football by how few times he lost the ball – FYI.

** - Valued members of the Daniel Kitson Marketplace

*** - By “We” I mean me and the venues. It’s not me pluralising the first person to lend my own decisions more validity****

**** - We don’t like that.

Inside, on my own, talking for a bit.

So – firstly, I’ve had a couple of people ask if they can order things from the record shop (available here on my website until September 30th) to be delivered overseas. Well, im here to tell you, that you absolutely can, you can order them from ANYWHERE*. Also, whilst I’ve got you, feel free to mention the shop to people you know, who you think may be interested. I know that historically, I’ve had various rules and stipulations and a self important reluctance to engage with anything approaching fame but that legendary behaviour is sometimes mistaken as me wanting every single piece of work I ever make to remain a secret forever but that’s not the case. I think this particular show is really enjoyable and this record/cassette/cd release is the only way people will have to hear it, once its finished and I’d like anyone who wants to hear it, to be able to to hear it**. Rather than hearing about it when its too late and being cross with me.

Although actually, having said that, you could probably just lend them your copy. I guess.***

Secondly – in order to finish working on the show and hear myself performing it out loud every day whilst I’m working on it – I’m going to be doing some more online, audio only, work in progress shows throughout September. Now they are work in progress, so I’ll be rewriting during the days. Making changes, trying things, discarding things, realising crucial things just in time. But whilst these won’t be the final, finished show – they will be pretty late stage work in progress, so you will get the full story. Also, excitingly****, I’m going to do them in blocks of four, Monday to Friday, at different times so that some will be more conveniently timed to people living in Australia and/or America.

Tickets will be £5 and the money will go to a grass roots charity working in Calais called Refugee Info Bus who are excellent. Doing very specific, targeted, practical work. You can find more about that particular charity here.

Tickets should be on sale by the time you read this. Here are the dates and times. Times given are uk times. And whilst the 11pm shows will be more convenient for East coast of America and the Noon will be easier for Australia, all shows will be accessible from anywhere.

September 6th – 9th at 6pm – click here

September 13th – 16th at 11pm – click here

September 20th – 23rd at Noon – click here

September 27th – 30th at 6pm - click here

Okey doke. That’s it for now.

I’ll doubtless send another reminder about the shop in the week before it closes so don’t you worry about that one little bit.

GOODBYE FOREVER

Daniel

*-Yes. Even there.

**- As long as they own some suitably antiquated playback device, like a record player or a car.

***-As long as you also lend them some suitably antiquated playback device, like a record playe, or a car.

****- I stand by that word, actually.

I've Opened a Record Shop - (Sort of)

Right then.

I’ve been bombarded by people asking whether im doing Edinburgh*. So, to clarify – I have decided not to go to the Edinburgh Festival this year. Now, this was, a tricky decision because I am double dingled and I do love the festival and I have built my entire year around it for over two decades but, gallingly, I don’t think I’m quite ready in the noggin, just yet. I recently struggled with going to the opticians and got genuinely scared by thunder a couple of weeks ago. So, I’m not sure about inviting strangers to huddle round me in the dark, cackling their rancid lung filth into the dank air of an Edinburgh basement for slightly longer than an hour. Also,  I reckon I’m still too scared to sit in an audience without freaking out or eat in many of my favourite places or linger in a coffee shop, trying to impress the staff with my knowledge of naturally processed beans. Also, also, I am actually, a tiny bit reluctant to toot the magic horn and summon fervent danoracks from all corners of the legally available globe to congregate in a place they don’t live to worship at my feet. Of course, I genuinely hope everyone has a wonderful and nourishing time, that shows are successful, technicians are employed, local businesses thrive and egos are satiated but I don’t think its for me, this year.

Of course, I’m already wracked with regret, envy, sadness, self loathing and statistical doubt about my decision, so, to stay busy and distract myself from the fact that countless other people are having precisely the sort of time I physically and emotionally crave but am, for now, psychologically unequipped to enjoy, I’ve been working on something else. 

Which is this.  

I’m going to release a newly finished show exclusively on physical media (LP, CD, Cassette Tape) and for a strictly limited time.

The show is called Shenanigan, I’ve been working on it on and off for a couple of years and whilst I think its top notch, it’s actually something I slightly struggle to describe. I did work in progress shows of it two years ago (a few nights at the Trades Club in Hebden Bridge and a few weeks at The Roundabout in Edinburgh) and over the course of those, it developed into a really really good story about two people with a satisfying mystery at the middle of it and  I really liked it. I had plans to turn it into some vaguely experimental play, but then the kerfuffle happened and that plan fell away. Then, in June of this year, i did two weeks of work in progress on the show as an Audio Only Online Storytelling Experiment™ during which time, I tweaked it and changed it, I realised it was a story about telling stories and I was frankly, delighted by how well it worked as an audio thing. So now I’m going to work on finishing it over the rest of August and most of September, then I’ll record it three times, once for the LPs, once for the CDs, and once for the Casette Tapes. The finished version will never be performed live and there are no plans to make it available as a download which means this show will only exist on/in these objects.

 Which I think is nice.

 So.

I’ve set up a shop where you can pre-order the show on whichever format you want. Now, there is some really important, if potentially boring, information for you to read before ordering - please do read it.  

Briefly though, the prices for Shenanigan are £30 for Double Vinyl, £17 for CD and £12 for Cassette. There’s no limited number available or anything like that, the number of each item that gets made will be dictated by the number of orders placed.  The shop is open from by the time you read this until Midnight on September 30th 2021.  At that point the shop will be closed, all items will go off sale and I’ll use the money you’ve paid to finalise various orders with a few places and then update my website with  the expected lead times on each of the formats. Then once they’re made and delivered to me, I’ll parcel them up and post them to you.

So, there we go, a bit of fiddly, time consuming and hopefully, satisfying fun.

There’s also double vinyl pressings of three old shows available in there at £25 each and If this goes well, I may look into releasing some of the longer shows on triple vinyl but if, as is a distinct possibility, this turns out to be a logistical ball ache the like of which I’ve never imagined I might not bother.

So that’s that.

But also, just quickly whilst I’ve got you, I’m aware that what with everything in the UK unlocking and everyone deciding to ignore everything for a while before everything becomes impossible to ignore again, some of you will be, understandably, wondering about me doing some live stuff. But then, I’m also aware that some of you will be feeling a bit left behind at the moment and I happen to know how scary and miserable that feeling can be and would rather not contribute to it, so I’m going to be doing some more things online (once I think of them) and also trying to find ways of doing live shows in such a way that other people as reticent as I currently am would feel comfortable attending. Not sure how yet, probably some combination of masks and gaps along with, potentially being outside. Although, I’ve contacted a few open air theatres, and weirdly, at this stage in the summer,  they’re all a bit booked up. So maybe I’ll rent a field or have a tiny audience in a massive hall somewhere. Anyway – I’ll be in touch about that if and when I’ve worked it out.   

But for now, the shop is open and however you’re doing, I very much hope you’re doing alright.

You can find the shop by clicking on, SHOP.

*I’ve received three (3) semi interested emails over the last six weeks.