Gary Kitching is a direct, warm and welcoming chap. He establishes an easy audience rapport as he sets up the guiding premise of his show, Me and Mr C. We are to lower any expectations we might have for it, he tells us; he’s made it in order to have a one-man show as an actor rather than a comedian, and the whole thing will be improvised. Thus various audience members are allotted tasks that will assist this process, and the setting for the play is described so we can visualise it. Mr C is introduced – the rather alarming 1960s Chinese vent doll that features in the publicity photographs.

Twenty minutes or so in, the ‘play’ begins and our playfulness is taken on a darker, more complex journey. Gary’s character is exposed as a man suffering the fallout of his girlfriend leaving him, with no one to help him through these feelings of grief. His one friend is a silent dummy. To challenge himself Gary is advised to have a go at stand-up comedy. The audience has been primed to heckle and to not hold back.

In between his disastrous attempts at stand-up are visits to his therapist, on this occasion ably played by volunteer Tom, who reads audience questions and nods sagely when prompted. Gary brings in his improvisation skills in answering these questions; some riffs work and others fall flat.
Persevering with the stand-up he gradually loses it and here the piece balances on a sharp-edged knife. The audience on this occasion was still heckling cruelly as Gary went beyond comedy to a place of rage and despair. I felt he intended to take us with him, for us to be forced to stop being frivolous, stop playing, start listening.

The ending, in which Gary and the dummy swap roles is perhaps overcooking the subtext, but on this occasion it did make the audience realise that Me and Mr C was more than an invitation for it to raise its own voice.