Daniel Kitson - 2003 Melbourne International Comedy Festival Gala

Ladies and gentlemen, the massively overrated Daniel Kitson. That walk was a bit longer than I'd anticipated and clearly a bit longer than you'd all anticipated with the amount of applause you'd allocated for the walk. I mean don't feel bad about it but I'm going to be on television looking like a bit of a twat now and I'm not entirely to blame for that, I did the gala last year, it went quite well so if this doesn't, let's bear that in mind, right. Now what I did last year was I used all my short jokes because you've got about four or five minutes in which to come on, be hilarious and then leave never to be seen again. So I've done all my short jokes so what I'm going to do is I'm going to tell you a story. Now it's pretty much putting all my comedic eggs in one basket and if you don't like the story I've got fuck all to fall back on. So again no pressure but please, you know, I used to really like playing football. I still like playing football and I'm not as bad as it as my appearance would have you believe. At high school in the third year I was always picked last, you'd be like right Dan it's either you or a bench, so whoa actually stay there, we'll have the bench, pop it in goal, how's that, all right. So by the fifth year I'd become one of four team captains and I thought oh now I have the power because that was fairly self-important as a 14-year-old boy, oh oh Ozymandias look upon my kingdom and despair ye mortals, hey sorry I'll have Trevor. So you know I thought what I'd do is I'd pick the shit players who always got left to last but I'd pick them first, yeah, fuck in the system, yeah, what's that a law, yeah, what's that a convention. I was breaking a law and stretching a convention, I'm a maverick, I don't play by the rules you choose to live by madam, yeah. I thought I'd pick the shit players first right so we're there on the first day of PE right there's me and three other team captains over here and all our potential teammates scattered around the changing rooms over there, I've got first pick and I go I'll have Darren. Now Darren was the worst player in the whole school and he was also mental right, he was our school's mental kid, every school's got one mental kid and he was ours, he was properly mental, he once just shouted fuck off at a teacher for about 10 minutes and wasn't aware he was being naughty, he was just going fuck off, fuck off, fuck off you, fuck off, you're not my real dad. He actually, he actually said that to a teacher on more than one occasion, he went you're not my real dad, he's going no, I know I'm not Darren, I'm a woman, can we move past this, yeah, yeah, very clever with your pull back and reveals he said. So, so I went I'll have Darren right, the whole room went oh, I went oh yeah making changes and he came walking over, not really walking, he sort of twitched and jerked a lot so he sort of went fuck off, fuck off and he sort of stood there and I was like woohoo team and then it went down the line of team captains, he went I'll have Ben Rowley, he's the best player, I'll have Tom Tooth, he's the second best player, I'll have Roger Tice, he's the third best player, it came back to me right, I paused for effect to be honest you know, I could hear them whispering wow what's he gonna do now, he appears to be disregarding conventions, if I'm not much mistaken we're in the presence of a maverick. I paused and I went I'll have Duran, now Duran had a very similar name to Darren right, was the second worst player in the school you know, I'm building a team of champions and he was also mental right, but quite often at lunchtime he'd have a Crunch Corner Yoghurt, have you got Crunch Corner Yoghurts over here? No, you see most comedians would have researched whether or not, whether or not a pivotal part of their story, stroke a basket full of eggs you know would translate, but not me, I'm a maverick yeah, well I'm going to explain what a Crunch Corner Yoghurt is, it's fairly simple, you've got a big bit of the yoghurt, that's yoghurt and then there's a little portion in the corner which is full of crunchy bits, hence the crunch right, and the corner, it's all in the name right, and what you're supposed to do is flip it all in, flipping all the crunchy bits right, but he didn't do that, he'd take out each individual crunchy bit one by one and arranged them carefully on top of the yoghurt right, so he was mental. So what happened was I went I'll have Duran and his face lit up right, he couldn't believe that he'd not been picked last, his massive big grin across his stupid face and he came, and he came staggering over to me and I was thinking he's working, he's fucking working right, then as he got to about there Darren, the worst player in the school, leans up to me and goes you shouldn't have picked Duran, he's fucking shit, what are we a team or a charity, I play to win do you, hey not my real dad, fuck off. Well I hope you enjoyed my basket, it's taught me a valuable lesson, thanks very much.