Edinburgh Festival Fringe Music & Musicals reviews: Don Paterson & Graeme Stephen | Mine: A New Solo Musical | Warriors

Don Paterson and Graeme Stephen set a high bar for a nightly Scottish Music Showcase, says Jim Gilchrist

MUSIC

Scottish Music Showcase: Don Paterson & Graeme Stephen ****

Rose Theatre (Venue 76) until 28 August

Graeme Stephen

An easeful pairing of two seasoned jazz guitarists, Don Paterson and Graeme Stephen, made for a propitiously classy opening for an ambitious, nightly programme of top-level Scottish folk and jazz names running throughout the Fringe. Paterson is, of course, also an award-winning poet, but here the muse was strictly in the music.

This was an empathetic duo, their contrasting yet complementary styles on semi-acoustic guitars brightly toned, with occasional recourse to Stephen’s looping and other effects. They articulated clearly and fondly in numbers favoured by Bill Evans such as Beautiful Love and My Foolish Heart, or in Paterson’s Lower Pleasance – a dreamily floating evocation of what was , apparently, a less than pleasant Dundee Street.

What Paterson described as “a jazz waltz written for a horror movie” seemed surprisingly shudder-free – until, that is, Stephen deployed delay and other spooky effects, the tune fading out amid mildly deranged clamour. In contrast, Paterson’s take on Hamish Henderson’s The Gillie Mor emerged out of electronic drones and murmurs to take on resonant character, an echo, perhaps, of his time with the Celtic jazz-fusion band Lammas.

Assembled by the venturesome Soundhouse organisation, this Scottish Music Showcase may have missed the printed Fringe programme, but its opening night attracted a sizeable audience to the hitherto sadly under-used Rose Theatre. Its reputation can only spread, with future nights featuring such jazz luminaries as the Helena Kay Band, Georgia Cécile, Fergus McCreadie and Matt Carmichael, Tommy Smith and Peter Johnston, while esteemed folk names include Chris Stout and Catriona McKay, Adam Holmes, cellist Su-a Lee and friends and concluding on the 28th with the suitably genre-defying Mc McFall’s Chamber.

Jim Gilchrist

MUSICALS AND OPERA

Mine: A New Solo Musical ***

theSpace @ Surgeons Hall (Venue 53) until 12 August

There’s a pleasing perceptiveness to this new solo musical from American performer Asher Muldoon. It’s essentially a classical ghost story, and Muldoon shows a remarkable respect for the form, utilising familiar tropes without resorting to hackery. When a crypto bro buys the abandoned ghost town of Birnam Mines for $50,000 with an eye on turning it into a tourist attraction you can kinda sense where this is going but Muldoon has a few surprises in store. For a start, his winning informal style nicely sidesteps expectations, as do his songs which are at least couple of cuts above what you might expect from a young performer. Engagingly, everything here - songs script and performance – are in service of the story. There’s more than a hint of Stephen King - of course the town has a few dark secrets, just like It, and one of those campfire tales nods towards one of King’s most famously gruesome short stories. However, what Muldoon instinctively understands is that it’s not just places that are haunted, more often than not it’s people. There’s a deal of emotional intelligence here that lends Mine a resonance that a lot of spook shows lack.Rory Ford

MUSICALS & OPERA

Warriors ***

Army @ The Fringe (Drill Hall) (Venue 358), until 13 August

Del, Dinger, Lofty and Titch have recently passed their infantry training and are bound for Helmand Province. Del leaves behind Angie, the love of his life. Lofty, the platoon clown, has a four-year-old daughter. Dinger (Private Thomas Bell) leaves his latest boyfriend. Their experiences under the Afghan sun will bind them closer than brothers.

Written by Captain Alex Shannon, a serving soldier of some 37 years, with songs by Sergeant Danny Muir and Staff Sergeant Peter McKinley, Warriors is a compassionate reflection on what it means to serve one’s country. Sam Willison, Michael Guest, Grant MacIver and Ben Ewing work hard as the four squaddies, with Willison (Del) and Rebekah Lumsden (Angie) doing much of the heavy lifting in Fraser Scott’s production.

In tone, the show ranges widely from locker room humour to schmaltzy love songs. The music at times feels rudimentary, the sentiments well trodden, but the sincerity is never in doubt. This is a show about the humanity of soldiers, which emerges in strength, in weakness and above all in comradeship. Even though the conclusion is signposted from the beginning, it’s no less heart-rending when it comes.

Susan Mansfield