Fringe musicals, opera and music reviews: Bliss | Hole! | The Song of the Ice | A World Apart | Carnegie | This Little Thing of Ours

A non-production image of the young cast of Bliss. | Image: contributed

MUSICALS AND OPERA

Bliss ★★★★★

Pleasance Courtyard (Venue 33) until 31 August

It’s often said that there are no original ideas, so if you’re going to borrow an existing one, make it good. Brand new musical Bliss has echoes of so many stories and shows that went before it, you can practically hear them bouncing off the walls. But writers Emma Lively and Tyler Beattie (responsible for book, music and lyrics) chose well, and this vivacious production has a bright future.

The basic premise, four princesses stuck in a tower and longing for life outside the castle walls, has obvious shades of Rapunzel. Or more specifically, the Disney re-work Tangled, with its peppy heroine and catchy tunes. Backing the princesses on stage, is a large ensemble of singer/dancers all dressed in identical leggings and tunics, giving more than a passing nod to Hamilton. And while there are only four lead women, there are clear parallels to Six, which also started life at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. So if you’re a fan of musical theatre, this is a dream come true.

With production values so high, most Fringe companies would need a ladder to reach them, Bliss sets out its credentials early. Stretching across the backdrop and up over the ceiling, the colourful lighting design almost deserves its own show. Behind the scenes, invisible until the curtain call, a tight band backs the singers through one showstopper after another. Each song drives the narrative along perfectly, as the four uber-bright princesses strike out alone for the night, leaving their over-protective father behind.

There isn’t a single weak link in this cast, with triple-threats galore in all lead roles and ensemble. Tom Bennett is particularly hilarious as the self-serving Fairy Godfather and Jordan Calloway channels his inner Robbie Williams brilliantly as Prince Devin. In amongst the glitz and glamour, however, is an important message about loving our imperfections and valuing intelligence and talent over beauty. For the parents in the audience, there’s also a poignant note about setting our children free.

“That show will be on Broadway next year,” said the man behind me as we exited the theatre. He may well be right. Kelly Apter

MUSICALS AND OPERA

Hole! ★★★★

Underbelly Bristo Square (Venue 302) until 30 August

A celebration of the “crack that lets the light in,” or a joyously smutty and inventive romp that smashes heteronormative stereotypes while revelling in a few of its own. Why not both? A wholly original musical by writer-performers Jake Brasch and Nadja Leonhard-Hooper collectively known as American Sing Song, this proceeds from an absurdly apocalyptic premise and escalates from there. Brasch and Leonhard-Hopper plays all the roles themselves, standing behind a keyboard console and selection of gizmos for sound effects. Oh, and their hair is piled high on their hands in large “O” shapes.

Their story follows Luke and Connor, two small-town Nebraska best friends who have the poor luck to be part of a community under the sway of a borderline schizophrenic pastor who firmly believes that, “the anus is the locus of all evil” and only by the wearing of a butt plug can folk avoid “The Great Sucking” — a sort of anti-rapture that pulls unwary souls to eternal damnation.

This is doubly unfortunate as the plugs are un-lubricated wooden ones because “you’re not supposed to enjoy it”.

From such an absurd premise Brasch and Leonhard-Hooper steadily build and build upon it, escalating the stakes (what if this was true?) in a manner that distinguishes this as both a highly effective baroque science-fantasy and a great comedy. The songs can be maddeningly catchy (take a bow “I’m The Only Guy in Ohama”) and the innovative way the perfectly in sync duo tell the story means that the show never misses a beat. The mixture of scatology and religious satire may recall Trey Parker and Matt Stone, but Brasch and Leonhard-Hooper demonstrate a genuine sweetness and warmth — both as writers and performers — that allows them licence to go wherever they want while the audience gladly follows. Rory Ford

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MUSIC

The Song of the Ice ★★★★

artSpace@StMarks (Venue 125) until 28 August

Steve Garrett is the proverbial lad o’ pairts – geologist, jazz guitarist, producer, photographer and watercolourist, who combines these skills, plus his experience of working in Antarctic in the 1980s, to create an intriguing and timely audiovisual show illustrating all too clearly the critical effects of climate change on Earth’s southernmost continent.

Interspersed with often reflective interludes on electric guitar, he recalls his arrival in Antarctica and the images that greeted him as an inexperienced researcher, showing photographs (penguins, of course) and his own impressive watercolours. He invokes his Antarctic heroes – Scott, Shackleton and Edward Wilson, looping his guitar percussively to suggesting their trudging through snow.

His central title piece, Song of the Ice, accompanies animations showing the continents drifting apart across eons – a process still going on – and his playing becomes accompanied by the ominous rumble of electronically processed sounds from under the shifting ice sheet. Drilled ice cores record CO² levels going back thousands of years, including the rises created by the Industrial Revolution and the worrying pace of change within our lifetimes, prompting a lyrical guitar piece to end on a stark, high-pitched note.

Garrett returned to the Antarctic in recent years to see how things had changed since his time working there. Once again he photographs penguins – whose very existence, however, is now threatened by the “catastrophic” break-up of the sea ice.

The show could do with a little tightening up, perhaps, to blend music with narrative, but makes for a salutary hour’s experience. To a final glowing sequence of photographs and paintings, his closing guitar piece, Polar Farewell, chimes wistfully. “Peace and tranquillity can still be found there,” he declares, “and that is the song of the ice,” while having charted all too clearly the immense environmental changes there and their implications. Jim Gilchrist

MUSICALS & OPERA

A World Apart ★★

theSpace @ Symposium Hall (Venue 43) until 29 August

Kate and Alice are a pair of childhood friends, the former settled with a husband and infant child in the small Australian town they grew up in, the latter trying to make a success of herself in London. Each envies the other, unaware of their respective motherhood anxieties and existential dating and career angst, until a joint 30th birthday party brings them together to talk through their feelings. There’s a lot to like about this pleasant new piece of Australian musical theatre, not least the voices of its stars Samantha Lauren Martin (Kate) and writer Amelia Jutilane (Alice), yet the sung-spoken musical refrain and the emotional places the piece visits begin to feel very repetitive until the climactic reunion. David Pollock

MUSICALS AND OPERA

Carnegie ★★★

Braw Venues @ Grand Lodge (Venue 7) until 30 August

A musical celebration of the life of Dunfermline’s favourite son, Andrew Carnegie (Luis Garrow) from writer, lyricist, composer — and supporting performer — Ian Hammond Brown this confidently sung new musical benefits from a neat framing device. Set during the last two hours of Carnegie’s life, two spectral presences; an aggrieved former employee (Daniel Medina) who died during an industrial dispute at Carnegie’s Homestead steel plant in 1892 and a vaguely heavenly adjudicator review the events of Carnegie’s past to determine his fate in the afterlife. This at least allows for some salient back-and forth about the nature of capitalism which the show badly fumbles by its end.

Brown — who also plays Carnegie Steel’s chairman Henry Clay Frick — is a gifted songwriter but there are no real stand-out numbers. There are however two strong performances from Jude Vandecasteele as Carnegie’s mother and Elizabeth Dyce as the Scottish-American industrialist’s wife, Louise. The production cleverly takes advantage of its rather grandiose venue — the stage very convincingly evokes oak-panelled offices — although this does mean it can understandably appear a little static. Brown has been working on this for over 10 years and it does show although at two hours it still drags in parts. Unfortunately, for a show that debates morality of profiting from other people’s work, it uses A.I. generated images to establish settings and ends with a succession of truly tasteless A.I. slop that seems sadly tone deaf. Rory Ford

MUSICALS AND OPERA

This Little Thing of Ours ★★

theSpace @ Venue 45 (Venue 45) until 22 August

A four piece on-stage band, The Button Men, at least make this misfiring original Mafia musical comedy endurable and give it some much needed energy. However, when they’re not playing this is a pretty thin ragu of tired tropes served up with some deeply questionable Italian-American accents by Scottish company MB Musicals. The songs aren’t great and the vocal performances, while enthusiastic, are not notably skilful. The script mistakes hoary mob cliches for jokes and the characterisations are insultingly broad — although loud. The cast, at least, appear to be enjoying themselves but it’s hardly infectious. Rory Ford

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