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ssp at Edinburgh, Flanders and Swann
- Pleasance Cabaret
- Edinburgh, 3.40pm, 18 August
Good old-fashioned giggles
Would you ever! Half a century on since Michael Flanders and Donald Swann last serenaded musical halls, their playful medleys are making a somewhat unexpected comeback. The creators of childhood classics such as Mud Glorious Mud and The Gnu are given a twenty-first century makeover courtesy of Tim Fitzhigham and pianist Duncan Walsh Atkins.
The humour of the songs, reflective of the period, is somewhat haughty if uncontrollably jovial – how you might imagine a late night at the Rotary club once the bow ties are loosened. Fitzhigham, crooner and compere, would do well on the regular stand up circuit, mixing rehearsed with impromptu English upper class witticisms that produce just the right kind of banter with the audience.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the show attracts a more elderly and family-orientated Festival crowd than one might normally anticipate at Edinburgh. Thankfully for Walsh Atkins, however, the Uckfield crowd stay away from the fray. This show is bursting to the brim with plain, good old English loveable bravado. An intelligent pastiche of a bygone era of comedic entertainment. Truly a treat.
Will Henley
