Dear Billy - A Love Letter to the Big Yin, Traverse

 Everyone usually remembers the first time they saw or heard Billy Connolly. He wasn't easily ignored. For most of us that meant seeing him on screen or stage, or listening to a recording. But plenty of people have first hand memories of meeting Billy, living alongside him, working with him.

Gary McNair is the front man for this show, accompanied by two musicians, and backed up by the usual creative team that's always involved in these productions. But behind that is a small army or story gatherers and researchers who found, listened to, and recorded the words of, many people across Scotland who'd encountered Billy in some way or other.

McNair has taken the best of these interviews/stories/reactions, and woven them into a compelling one man performance. Albeit one man portraying many characters. He's energetic, convincing in his multiple alter egos, and hilarious. And, occasionally, very moving, as in his relating the words of a woman whose husband also had Parkinsons, and was touched by Billy's empathy.

And there's McNair's own brief encounter with the great man - both real and imagined! Plus all the characters who new him before he became The Big Yin loved by millions, who could see he had something special about him, even if they didn't always want to admit it.

Ninety minutes flies by, and even McNair's going off script at one point didn't spoil the performance, indeed enhanced it, for he's got a great ability to keep audiences on side and take the piss out oh himself. Much like his hero.

Return to Seoul

Freddie likes to sight read, to take a quick look at a piece of musical notation, then dive straight in and play it. Which sets the theme for her character, apt to jump in suddenly, take the risk and see what happens.

Aged 25, she returns to Korea from where, as a baby, she was adopted by her French parents. Despite saying it's something she wouldn't do, she goes to the adoption agency and asks if she can be put in touch with her biological parents. Her father responds and, accompanied by the hotel receptionist she's made friends with, she sets off to meet him and his family. It's a tense affair, requiring her friend and her aunt to translate to the father, with cultural differences piled on top of what was always going to be an emotional and hard-to-handle life event. When she returns to Europe it's with mixed emotions about her experience.

She'll be back 2 years later, and a further 5 after that. Each time she finds out, and grasps, more about her own background, and the culture of the country she originates from. There are powerful emotional moments as she navigates a present built on a past she doesn't fully understand. But, even though she picks up some of the language, she remains very much French. When she is finally able to connect with her mother it's a powerful bridging moment.

A powerful, pensive story about how we see ourselves as individuals, and as part of a wider society and culture. The emotional encounters, miscommunications and misunderstandings, and culture clashes, all feel grounded in real experiences. Ji-Min park is excellent as an impulsive yet withdrawn Freddie, trying to navigate environments and feelings that are alien to her, and the risks of upsetting everyone around her.

Highly recommended.

World Trade Fair Day Celebration, Usher Hall

 A bit of an odd event, that was frequently interesting, often entertaining, but never quite gelled.

It opened with a school pipe band marching on, followed by the evening's host, Gail Porter (no, I had to look up who she was too...). Some information about Fair Trade, a bit of an attempt at warming up the audience (not entirely successfully), and a couple of videos on a big screen over the stage, explaining something about the Fair Trade organisation and what they do.

Eventually we got to one of the two main music acts for the night, with, weirdly, the better musicians on first. Which maybe gave the biggest clue to the nature of the event. Shooglenifty were excellent, the 7 piece outfit delivering a rowdy and danceable set with sound musical ideas and lots of life about them.

The interval had more of Ms Porter, more worthy video material, and a youth drum band plus a youthful dance troupe. And then came the main act, The Red Hot Chilli Pipers.

I've seen the Pipers a couple of times before, but in a very different environment, where their fun act seemed more appropriate. But somehow it just didn't seem to work in a grand venue like the Usher. Competent musicians, albeit far from the best pipers (ironically), a deficit perhaps highlight by having seen and heard the wonderful Ross Ainslie a few nights before in the Traverse next door. More show than go, they are entertainers more than serious musicians. We left before the end...

Tim Edey & Ross Ainslie, TradFest, Traverse

 Sometimes it's hard to tell if Tim Edey is a brilliant and offbeat comedic storyteller, who just happens to be a virtuoso musician. Or vice versa. Whichever it might be, he's always a hugely entertaining performer. Ross Ainslie matches him for musical skill, and can be pretty amusing in his own right. Although he, like the audience, often looks bewildered and/or exhilarated by Edey's flights of fancy.

But this remains a music gig, and there is great variety and rapturous moments aplenty. Tunes from Scotland, Ireland, Galicia, North America and beyond. Playing styles, especially Edey, influenced by jazz and rock. Tim on guitar and melodeon, Ross on whistles, cittern and highland bagpipes. Joined by young whistle star Kenneth Macfarlane for the final number of the first half and the final encore.

While there's some beautiful slower material, it's the rousing faster tunes, fingers flying, that really get the audience going. Edey's accompaniment is always unexpected, constantly changing and inventive. Ainslie brings sparkling flourishes to the melodies and a sound musical sensibility to all he plays.

A hugely entertaining gig, for all the right reasons.

Kim Carnie, TradFest, Traverse

 

A very happy looking Carnie accompanied by John Lowrie on Piano, Innes White on guitar, and the fiddle of Lauren McColl, with White, and occasionally MacColl, providing backing vocals. Mostly songs in Gaelic, a few of them from recent times, and some self penned numbers in English. Carnie has a beguilingly soft voice, and a constant smile on her face. The arrangements are sparse, and sensitive, highlighting the vocal talent. She's a good storyteller too, with several funny, and usually bloody, introductions to the Gaelic numbers. One of which lasted a good bit longer than the song itself!

An enthusiastic audience were encourage to join in the chorus of the encore, although with it being in Gaelic, and this being Edinburgh, it was more mumblealong than singalong. While there had been a few faster numbers, the bulk of the set was slow to medium tempo, which made for a very relaxing, and enjoyable, gig.

The Foghorn Stringband, Traverse, TradFest

 Long time specialists in country, bluegrass and cajun music, the Foghorners have changed line ups several times over the years, and are now a four piece consisting of original members Caleb Kauder (mandolin, fiddle) and Sammy Lind (fiddle, banjo), plus relative newcomers Reeb Willms (guitar) and Nadine Landry (double bass). All four contribute lead and harmony vocals, in an ever shifting mix of voices.

Although the bass is miked up, and there are a couple of low level mikes to pick up guitar, banjo and mandolin, the bulk of the sound is fed through one central mike, meaning the line up of faces changes constantly, and some complex choreography is required. It's all part of a performance that constantly emphasises their links to old time music. (Although it does mean that, by modern standards, the mix coming through is very variable!)

The songs and tunes are mostly from various traditions within the US, plus a couple of more recently penned numbers. Musicianship is first class, the vocals acceptable. None of the singers stand out as a great solo voice, and often sound better in harmony. One of the highlights was an a cappella rendering from the two women. While there a few slow pieces, much of the set is fast, often furiously so, with foot tapping rhythms and repetitive lyrics, the latter lending themselves to a bit of audience participation at times. The foursome all take turns at introductions between numbers, with frequent interjections for the others. They can be amusing, but there's not all that much information about the origins of the material, and, given the historic nature of the music, this could have been expanded.

It was an entertaining, sometimes exciting and rousing evening. Yet also curiously flat. As if something was missing...

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry

 I had seen the trailer for this film so many times beforehand that I wasn't expecting any surprises.  And that proved to be the case.  It is emotionally manipulative, frequently predictable, requires considerable suspension of disbelief, and the ending is curiously unresolved.  All of which sounds like the preface to a very negative review, but I have to admit loved it, with the tears in my eyes a positive response.  

The movie is largely redeemed by two elements.  Firstly, at a time when the current tory government is busy turning the UK into a right wing dystopian shithole, it offers hope, or at least an upbeat view of the human condition.  Secondly, and much more predictably, it stars Jim Broadbent.

The premise is a simple one.  Harold (Broadbent) and Maureen (Penelope Wilton) are long retired, long suffering, existing in a marriage that has lost the ability to communicate (we know all this very quickly, despite little being said).  He receives a letter from an old colleague, Queenie Hennessy, telling him she is dying in a hospice in Berwick-upon-Tweed, hundreds of miles from his home in south Devon.   I going to post a reply he finds a chance remark from a shop assistant changing in his mind.  The letter wouldn't be enough to make up for what he'd done to Queenie, it needs more than that.  And Harold, who feels he's failed everyone and has never achieved anything in his life, decides to change that.  So he starts walking.  To the hospice.  With no preparation, no experience of walking any distance, and no notice to the bewildered Maureen, Mr Fry begins his pilgrimage, determined to walk all the way to save Queenie.

Along the way he meets many people, some help him, others he gives help to, at times it works both ways.  A pub photo and social media turn him into a celebrity, and others join the pilgrimage.  All that matters to everyone is Harold's (non religious) faith, his belief that if he keeps walking then Queenie will stay alive.  Along the way a series of flashbacks explains something of the reasons for his sense of failure, both in relation to Queenie and to the son he feels he let down so badly.  

A few of these encounters and characters are ill-judged, others add to learning more about the man Harold is.  As I said before, the ending really doesn't give us much.  And yet that doesn't matter.  Harold Fry is telling us is that trying, with a bit of faith in yourself, is often enough, whatever the outcome.  

Wilton is excellent with what she's given, which isn't nearly enough, and there could have been more to Queenie's story.  But none of this seems important beside Broadbent's performance.  Always reliable, this is one of his best.  Go and see Harold Fry.  Don't expect too much from the script, enjoy some stunning views, and marvel at the greatness of Jim.  Oh, and be prepared to cry a bit...