Gig review: Revival! Acoustic Music Centre (Venue 123), Edinburgh

By SUE WILSON
Published on 24/08/2012 15:09

In 1949, the parish of Barvas, on Lewis, became the centre for a major Calvinist revival.

Revival!

Acoustic Music Centre (Venue 123)

Star rating: * * *

After he appeared in the visions experienced by a pair of devout elderly sisters there, the minister summoned to lead it was the celebrated preacher Duncan Campbell, originally a crofter and piper from the Argyllshire island of Lismore.

He was also the grandfather of singer and fiddler Mairi Campbell (the voice of Auld Lang Syne in the Sex and the City movie), who features in this words-and-music performance with husband and duo partner Dave Francis.

Francis traces the story back via their 14-year-old nephew, Duncan Campbell’s great-grandson – still living on Lismore today – describing his supposed encounter, en route to a bagpipe lesson, with a visionary/mystical figure dressed in an otter’s-head mask and a dog collar, who narrates the tale.

The minister’s biography and a basic history of the early revival are interwoven with apposite, atmospheric tunes and songs, as the show implicitly questions the faithful’s interdict on music and dancing, ending with an invocation of older pagan beliefs. It’s rather short on questioning or analysis of the revival itself, and the quasi-shamanic framing device is somewhat puzzlingly contrived, but as a new project still in development, Revival! shows interesting promise.

• Until today, 7:30pm.