Review of the comedian's latest high-concept work

In common with many right-minded people, Daniel Kitson dislikes audience participation, calling it 'creatively bankrupt and ethically questionable’, objecting to it on fundamental moral grounds – or more likely just because he finds it all a bit uncomfortable.

So, contrarian that he is, however, that he’s written a piece with almost 200 parts, almost all with just a couple of lines and all to be taken by members of the audience (plus a couple of dozen non-speaking parts for those who’d really rather not, thank you very much).

What quickly becomes apparent is that the scripts we all hold are not for a play, but for a mass discussion about taking part in this endeavour at all.

Collaboration flips the dynamic of comedy crowd-work clips, now so insanely popular online, on its head. Rather than a comedian mocking an audience member, this becomes the crowd getting together to tease and belittle the man centre stage – albeit with words he’s provided for us.

This is inescapably the writer-performer having an argument with himself, through scores of voices of doubt. It’s a point Kitson makes himself in the knowing script. Indeed, there’s little an external observer can think of by way of comment or criticism that hasn’t already crossed his mind, and been incorporated into a show that’s so meta, it gets meta about being meta. 

The script raises questions about whether this is really a collaboration when Kitson makes the fact he’s the control-freak puppet master so crucial to to the piece. It talks about this being a collective, in-the-moment experience, whose rotating cast makes it different every night… but it is really? It interrogates the performer’s relationship with an audience, both in this in-the-round venue and more widely, and what compels him to try to always be different from before.

It’s possibly a commentary, too, on the social media age, where the audience are vocal about their feedback and creators bend to what the consumers think they want.

But while Collaboration is not short of ideas, Kitson puts playfulness above profundity. He’s as light and jaunty as he has been in years. Navelgazing may underpin the jokes, but is always in their service. Whereas his previous work has often gone for – and achieved –poignancy, this script is nimble and witty and fun. 

Kitson has wrung out jokes from every angle of this innovative conceit, and made comedic capital out of his possible pretentiousness, thus avoiding it. He takes swipes at the awfulness of actors, calls stand-up a bankrupt art form full of people telling you too directly what they think and mocks his own legacy and reduces storytelling to its simplest elements.

As foreshadowed, the conclusion is no thunderbolt revelation, but does it need to be? The previous hour and a bit has been a blast… and at very reasonable prices.

• Daniel Kitson: Collaborator is at the Albany in Deptford until August 3.

Review date: 18 Jul 2024
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Deptford Albany