Kris Drever Band, Queens Hall

Support came from UK-domiciled New Yorker Annie Dressner.  Singer, guitarist, and and writer of songs with a story.  A very pleasant voice, good lyrics, and even a few memorable melodies - Dumb Boy and The Thrill of It stood out.Good audience interaction too, with a line in dry humour and nice way of pushing her merch.  I heard someone say she reminded them of Suzanne Vega, and there's definitely something in that.  

Mr Drever had his usual band lineup - Louis Abbot on drums and guitar, Euan Burton on (electric) bass, and Rachel Lightbody providing soaring backing vocals and a bit of keyboard.  Plus a couple of extra, the excellent Cahalen Morrison on banjo and guitar, and Michelle Willis on keyboard.  And Annie D returned a couple of times to add her voice to the ensemble

This was an album launch gig, so he began with new material, and lack of familiarity didn't dull the impact.  Drever has a mastery of lyrics and melody that marks him out as one of Scotland's top songwriters.  And a mastery of his instrument which places him comfortably in our top 10 guitarists too.  He'd move on to older material as the gig progressed, and a reminder of his folk roots with a solo performance of a 19th century whaling song.

Behind Drever's comfoting vocal style, Abbott added some lovely percussion flourishes, Burton was a solid as ever, Lightbody added in the purity of her vocals, Willis' keyboard filled out the sound, and the addition of Morrison was a real bonus, the banjo adding a new dimension to some weel kent sounds.  Throw in Kris' dry humour  and this was a performance to savour.

Dean Owens, Leith Folk Club

 A rare solo outing for Dean, a more intimate kind of gig.  He'd previously asked, on social media, for requests which meant that as well as many of the usual favourites, he also played many songs from his big back catlogue that aren't heard much nowadays.  Starting, I was delighted to hear, with my own request, My Town.  This was the song that got me into Owens, over 2 decades ago, when it made me feel homesick one night in Liverpool.  I've been a fan ever since.

So, if you've seen Dean often, this was a refeshing gig, with a mix of the usual classics like Raining in Glasgow, and songs he rarely sings now.  Plus an excellent Elvis cover.  As ever Owens is chatty, amusing, full of laughs.  A very enjoyable gig, yet again.

Amélie

 The 25th anniversary of the release of this classic slice of French whimsy, and one I was eager to revisit.  Going back to an old favourite can often be disappointing - but this one exceeded my already high expectations - there really is nothing quite like it.

The eponymous heroine grows up in a sttangely repressed family, has an isolated childhood, and finds it hard to make friends as an adult.  Instead she has an active inner life, a vivid imagination, and intense curiosity in the minutae of the world around her. That leads her to a discovery - she can make herself happier by making others happy, preferably in secret.  And so her undercover life begins.  But it needs a most unlikely friendship to develop before she discovers how to be happy for herself.

While the basic plot is simple enough what stands out is the idiosyncratic charm, throwawy details, and a strong visual identity.  It's colourful, at times near cartoonish.  Not only cinematographic, but photographic - there are so many images you feel you want to freeze and study more closely.  Which connects it to a theme of actual photographs which runs throuht the film.  The story is full of little twists, facts, dates, love affairs, sadnesses, revenge, reunions, and explosive sex in a toilet.  Surreal and yet conected to the streets of Paris.  Where elase will you experince the continuity of a bluebottle, a peripateic gnome, nuns playing swingball and a man in awe of his own brain functions?  All of these feature, but only one of them has any relevance to the plot.

Whimsical, funny, quirky and human.  I think I might be in love with Amelie all over again.

The Katona Twins- Alhambra Inspirations, Ps & Gs Church

 I wrote a review of a performance from the Hungarian duo back in 2019,and it was good to see them again after such a long interval.  This time the theme, as the tile iplies, was primarily Spanish, with works from composers from Iberia, or other strongly influended by the traditions of Spain.  Many of thw works not intended for two guitars, so these were very much the siblings' own interpretations and arrangements. 

Amusing and informative introductions, if a little slow, set the scene, each taking turns in doing so.   Incredible virtuoso guitar playing, with melodies constatnly swapping from one pair of hands to the other.  

The evening ended with their version of the Beatles tune Come Together, a tribute to their adopted home city of Liverpool.  The evening was refreshing classical change to our more usual musical fare, with crispness and exactitude, played with passion.

The Swansong (A Play, a Pie and a Pint), Traverse

 A young woman (Julia Murray) in the park, heads for the duck pond, her aim to end her life which feels like it's alll gone horribly wrong.  But an unlikely intervention from a talking swan (Paul McArthur) convinces her to think again, at least for a while.  And if there's time to think, says the swan, there's time for a night out.  Cue a series of bars and clubs and drunken soliloquys.  And songs, lots of songs, for htis is very much a musical.

And that's the problem, at least for someone like me.  When they could be expanding the plot, and exploring what is at heart a very dark theme, they're too busy singing.  he lyrics do help move things along, but not nearly as much as well written dialogue would have.  This cocktail of human frailty, fantasy and redemption deserved a little more depth, less froth. 

Disappointing.

The Events, Traverse

 A warm, happy group, having fun and laughs and tea, bringing the audience into the atmoshpere, by distributing tea and bsicuits.  They sing, a rough and ready choir, there for the enjoyment of using their voices, the minister directing them with humour and affection. 

And then He arrives, The Boy, and all changes.  The choir fade into the background, the conforntation between their leader, Claire, and the stranger, slowly taking shape, him chipping away her secuity with his own insecurities.  He the perperpetraro of a mass shooting, she a survivor, and it become sclear how he has marked her life, changed her.  He offers explanations for his actions, a litany of far right fantasy themes on race and immigration.  She unravels as the memories seep through, the fear and horror of the moment.  The choir, the community, the only anchor she has.

It's a poerful journey.  Sam Stopford is excellent as The Boy, constantly switching in and out of other characters in the story, a threat not through his presence but from his beliefs.  Claire Lamont's Claire gets a little too lost at times, but reamins the humane centre of the tale.  And the choir are there to remind us that events like these affect us all.

Davie Greig wrote The Events in 2013, but the themes it raises are still all too contemporary.  

Hamnet

Based on the Maggie O'Farrell novel of the same name, it tells a story of the brith anddeath of the son of Agnes Hathaway (Jessie Buckley) and William Shalespeare (Paul Mescal) - yes, that William Shakespear - and the grief they endure in their different ways. 

First meeting, courtship, disapproving parents, marriage, children.  The playwright spend ing much of his time away in London, leaving wife and household to cope, as he builds his reputation and career.  With inevitable tensions in the marriage, made worse by their differing approaches to the loss of their child.  He throwing himself deeper into his work, she withdrawing deeper within herself.  It takes the prodcution of Hamlet to bring understanding and resolution, but it's a herd road to get there.

The coulourless life of the sixteenth century, and the inherent sadness of the theme, can make it a hard watch.  Both leads are excellent, bringing the characters to life, with real emotional depth, but that still doesn't stop it from dragging at times (I almost fell asleep at one point...) so that my overall feeling was one of disappointment.  I'd enjoyed the novel, and had hopes for the film as a result, but felt short changed by the slowness of the plot and the over realiance on shoskc moments.