Mildly-spoken Daniel Kitson is slightly odd-looking, like someone from a 1970s Open University programme, the sort of person you could walk past in the street and hardly notice. However when he starts to tell his stories, everyone stops to listen.
Last year at the Traverse, Kitson told us his Tales of the Wobbly Hearted. This year, C90 is set in a rather strange office that stores compilation cassettes that people have made for someone else but which never got to them or were discarded. Henry is in charge of keeping them all filed away neatly and deals with any requests for tapes, although he has never received any, but the department is to be closed and it is Henry's last day. For the first time ever, Henry has been given a compilation tape of his own. Cut to Milly, who is on her last day as a lollipop lady, but who likes to cook human food to put out for the birds, which produces a very unlikely but absolutely hilarious running gag throughout the show. Then we meet several other characters also celebrating their last days in their respective jobs, all of whom receive a compilation tape.
Once again, Kitson has created an hour of pure magic, creating compelling tales featuring apparently dull, ordinary characters whose stories make you want to both laugh and cry at the same time. Kitson is an amazing storyteller who can keep a mixed audience hanging on his every word for an hour and still leave them wanting more. It is a shame that there is no script available for this show as it would be nice to revisit these stories again and again, albeit with only the memory of Kitson's soft, hypnotic voice and very precise enunciation of his carefully crafted if slightly quirky phrasing and vocabulary.