I want to preface this post by telling you
a) this is just focusing on Glasgow and Edinburgh or it would have been 40 pages long
b) I love Scotland, and
c) if you’re vegan, Scotland loves you (I mean, I’m not saying they don’t love you if you’re not vegan, but you’re DEFINITELY loved if you are vegan, know what I’m saying?).
Last week I went on a flying trip around the country. My first stop was Edinburgh, one of my favourite cities in the UK! Continue reading
During my final years of uni and the first few tentative summers after, I spent my Augusts in Edinburgh. Every year it seems half of London relocates to the Scottish capital for the month to be part of the world’s largest arts festival. Every tiny bar and cafe is transformed into a placarded venue, every street is plastered in posters and hastily stapled five star reviews, every performer selling their show on the mile, flyer by flyer, scanning reviews over rushed dinners. Every day is a repeat of the last, so every 24 hours you can try again: catch the show that sold out, eat in the cafe that was rammed the other day, make it to that club before prices go up. Every night the audience merge with the entertainers, the venues become parties, and the parties go on until sunrise.
I’ve spent months in Edinburgh altogether, always in August and always with the fringe as an overlay. This year I went for just two weeks, supporting Box 9, a project originally set up by Pete and taken over by similarly cherished friends. I don’t know what I thought would happen but in the event I worked hard for hours every day and then went drinking and dancing for hours every night; messing up my sleep, confusing my friends, blurring my thoughts.
The first few days were spent retracing old steps and relying on an internal geography. Then it fell into a more expected pattern of navigating the backstreets in to avoid the mile at all costs and spending brief lunch breaks hunting through charity shops for treasure. I found new friends, old friends, memories in forgotten places. I found old theatre pals and respected musician buddies and welcome school friends. I found a little bit of Pete in the way the musicians interact, musicians who all connect over running through the same procesess day after day. It’s not something we songwriters rarely encounter, solitary beings that we are.
There’s not much else to say about this Edinburgh for me because part of the magic of Edinburgh is what comes next. There’s all the bonds you make and the contacts you end up working with for the next two years. The rest of the magic is the city itself – which everybody should go and see, at least once. Just to watch the sun rise from the top of Arthur’s Seat or witness the way everything seems to slope down to a huge valley, structures placed precariously on a mountains edge. And that was Edinburgh 2015.
(That last picture is just to show you my hilarious post-show face)
This is a very self-indulgent review! Before I get started I want to mention the wonderful people at Seatwave and their new app Timbre which you should check out – more on that later…
A couple of weeks ago I went with James to see Once: The Musical. I saw the original film back in 2006 and on first hearing of the stage adaptation I thought I could imagine a student production playing in a basement in Edinburgh during Fringe, but was perplexed at the prospect of a dazzling Broadway show. It’s not a film that obviously lends itself to a stage adaptation; long shots, sparse conversation, improvised dialogue and slow-burning, subtle documentation have rarely been hallmarks of theatre. The film has no obvious dramatic rises and falls, little character development aside of the two leads and not even a particular drawn out narrative arc.
A lot of characters have been expanded from one-scene cameos into fullblown comedic sidekicks. I appreciate that the story needed to grow to fill a 3 hour show, and whilst I liked the characters of Billy and Andrei I didn’t appreciate the mother, the banker or the overall genre shift. The two leads differed greatly from the film; the Girl had become a lot more fiesty and perky than in the film. I found Marketa Irglova a little naive and simple in the film but weirdly whilst watching the musical it actually changed my memories; I found myself wishing for her naturalistic and wistful performance rather than the poorly-accented and overly comic one I had on the stage (we had understudy Sophie Reid at our performance).
Glen Hansard is dark, brooding and suitably everyman in the film and whilst the Guy (Daniel Hunter) had managed to retain the dark, broody aspects it was without any sense of the earnest, boyish “can’t believe my luck” that Glen has in the film and ended up coming across as grumpy. I wouldn’t describe Glen in the film as particularly charismatic but I think that’s what the character needs on stage; both James and I would like to see Ronan Keating in the role when he takes over as I think his natural charisma will combat the broodiness of the character. However a lot of the accents were all over the place which is a shame; London is one of the most diverse and multicultural cities in the world so where are the legitimately Irish and Czech actors?
The beginning pre-set featured the cast performing as part of an open-mic night; another feature straight out of Edinburgh. The set changes were incredible and I particularly liked the choreography in the flat scene. Musically the show had some impressive moments; the recording scene was a triumph. I’m not a massive fan of the original score and with the exception of “Leave” and “Gold” I don’t think there’s anything that particularly stands out to me and even then I think just love ‘Leave’ because of the vocal lines – Glen’s vocals are incredible and it’s such a heartbreaking song when he performs it. The magic of people joining in mid-song has been proved time and again and it was a nice theme in most of the songs featured.
Ultimately I enjoyed a lot of things about the show without really taking to the show itself. What I really loved is what the show represents for music in a West End theatre. I’ve got a long and varied history of playing music in theatre shows. I first met James during a show we performed about 3 years ago in Edinburgh. Whilst the cast was divided into musicians and actors, we all appeared on stage swapping instruments and performing original folk-pop music during the show (I racked up 8 instruments during the 1 hour show, a record). Whilst back then this was still relatively unique, I feel like now conventions such as: an actor beginning a song and a troupe of musicians joining in, a whole stage singing in 5 or 6 part harmony, melody being recycled during set changes or are now all very common place musical conventions and you could wander into any afternoon show in Edinburgh with “live music” and see a variation on a theme.
What was exciting for me about Once is that these conventions have made it out of the rehearsal room and onto the West End. Actor-musician shows are nothing new (notable examples being 2008 Company and 2009 Sunset Boulevard) but these sort of integrated gig-style shows are. I kept turning around to James during the show and saying “we could do this” – it’s exciting to think the kind of weird, niche thing you’ve spent years doing is reaching a mainstream audience and people are getting to experience music in a new way. The cast should be applauded for acting, singing, dancing and playing throughout. Great production, and as a stand-alone show it’s fine but I still question whether a film like Once can ever translate properly to a stage (and really if it needed to). Have any of you seen Once? I would love to know what you thought!
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Thank you so much Seatwave for sending me. Please go and check out Seatwave and their range of concerts – at the moment they’re offering money off for signing up to the newsletter which is pretty rad (also Seatwave have recently launched a new app called Timbre to keep on top of live music which I’ve been using this whole week – speaking as a live music fan, it’s great so gig fans, get on it.) Seatwave are also currently selling The Vamps tickets so get them whilst you’re hot if you’re still mourning McFly like I am (sob)…
TAPE PARADE 