Sydney Reviews

Daniel Kitson has returned. This time with a story of love: love at first sight, lived-in love, love lost and love revisited – the love of a comfortable home for the body and heart. He is an atypical ladies man: in the short, mousy-brown and unusual looking sense of the term. He is the awkward and understated type that after an hour and a half of externalised, internal monologue, I want to catapult my body up on stage and embrace him.

In a fabulous conceit, Kitson unfolds his story of the most significant love of his life: his home at 66a Church Road, Crystal Palace.

“It began on a Tuesday.” Kitson had found the perfect apartment. Blemishes had the effect of a quirky, lopsided grin: it made him fall in love even more. Time meant that he wanted more from the relationship than this mediocre commitment. As he laid his cards precariously on the table, he delivered an ultimatum that promised a deceivingly clearer future.

Kitson strings together vivid pictures of the intimacies of his apartment: the sash windows, the eyes to the soul; the banister, crafted by a real person; and the dreams it generates, the undeniably perfect combination of a record shop and a bun. Live chapters are spliced with subliminal recordings of an unknown ‘her’ inhabiting and leaving his home.

Theatricality is deliberately minimized to draw us in with pin-point focus to Kitson’s storytelling meanderings. His set initially appears to support the suggestion of a man kicked out with his belongings, but is intricately laced with models that capture his intimate relationship: like a wallet full of snapshots accidentally strewn across a floor.

Storytelling is as old as Methuselah on a hill, but Kitson is unique. He is not just a wordsmith, a comedian nor a hero – he is an eclectic collection of all these things. An unassuming style – stutters included – and an incredible sense of injustice is bravely purged onto the audience with exceptional eloquence and precision. The reputation of the Perrier Comedy Award he won in 2002 loses no momentum now.

Ultimately, the metaphor subtly extends to strike us where it hurts – where we’ve all undoubtedly lived at some point: in the past with the promise of a future that we can no longer attain. Obscure humour wrenches the audience left and right as this wonderfully sensitive and intricate story takes us through a plethora of emotions.


Sydney Opera House presents
66A Church Road: A Lament, Made of Memories and Kept in Suitcases
by Daniel Kitson

Venue: Playhouse, Sydney Opera House
Dates: 24 November to 13 December
Times: Tuesday – Sunday 7:30pm
Duration: 90 minute with no interval
Tickets: $30 - $54
Bookings: 02 9250 7777 or www.sydneyoperahouse.com