Edinburgh Fringe: Music & Cabaret

C Too

THREE STARS

Beyond Harlem Nocturne

Caley Bar

TWO STARS

Roaring Accordion

Sweet Grassmarket

THREE STARS

Rob Adams

Jonathan Prag has been presenting classical guitar recitals on the Fringe for many years now and in the midst of pushy, attention-seeking self-publicists he cuts an assuming figure who just gets on with playing some music.

His programme is well chosen, opening with baroque-era pieces by Irish harper Turlough O’Carolan and J.S. Bach and using Paraguayan guitarist-composer Augustin Barrios’s haunting, Bach-inspired La Catedral as a bridge to more modern times.

Prag played these with a graceful ease, the occasional stutter aside, and tackled the more involved, narrative style of Nikita Koshkin’s Usher Waltz with confidence. Inspired by Edgar Allan Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher, the piece uses both false and natural harmonics, snaps and crunchy chords to communicate the drama and horror that’s unfolding in the tale and Prag’s interpretation came across as a believably graphic soundtrack.

Although a crafty piece of stage management more or less guarantees an encore, Jose Luis Merlin’s Suite del Recuerdo finds Prag closing the set programme in more romantic territory with warm, melodic playing and rhythmical slapping and strumming as he negotiates dance metres from Argentina and Venezuela with aplomb. Runs until August 31.

Terry Edwards describes Beyond Harlem Nocturne as being like the late John Peel’s radio programme where, such was the variety presented, if you didn’t like one track, something more to your taste would follow soon. Alas, much of what follows the title tune here follows in similarly prosaic fashion.

Edwards and his guitar playing side-kick, Neil Fraser, certainly offer some variety in musical styles, with Edwards singing functionally and switching between saxophones (alto and tenor, sometimes played together), guitar, trumpet and flute and with Tom Waits, James Brown, John Cale, and Alex Chilton being offered as inspiration. However, as a session musician who has worked with Waits, Nick Cave, P.J. Harvey, and the Blockheads, Edwards didn’t give much indication of the qualities for which such figures might call on him and a mirthfully silent keyboard “solo” apart, the abiding memory of the hour was the “Falling down a mountain, climbing up a fountain” rhyming couplet. Runs until August 30.

Strangely Doesburg wouldn’t claim to be an accordion virtuoso but he does have a talent for filling a room with music and merriment. His room at Sweet International is a small one but Strangely, to give him his apparently real first name and his chosen stage moniker, is a big character with a roaring voice and songs that you’ll need a doctor’s line to avoid joining with – at full cry.

He juggles, using a ukulele, a hat and a bell. He makes things disappear. He gives out shots of bourbon (optional) and using his personality, the powers of a storyteller and the persuasiveness of a street performer gathering a crowd combined with a medicine show caller, a carney and a fire and brimstone preacher, he gets everyone involved. If ever a Fringe performer gave his all, it’s Strangely. Loopy? At one point, you might say he’s hopping mad and without wishing to give away his finale completely, he’s very trusting of his audience and not afraid of letting them take the strain while he plays one last accordion tune. If you prefer to let the entertainer do all the work, best avoid but if you’re looking for some late-night fun, this could be the show for you. Runs until August 30.