The Salamander, French Film Festival, Filmhouse

A 1971 Swiss drama mystery that intrigues.  In a small village a young woman is accused of shooting her bumptious uncle, but she says he shot himself while cleaning his rifle, and the case, for want of any concrete evidence, remains unresolved.  Pierre, a journalist, is commissioned to write an investigative piece on the story.  A lack of time makes him ask his friend Paul, a would-be novelist, to help him get to the facts.  The differences in their approaches, and the surprises they find when they get to know the girl, provide the basis for the drama.  Pierre seeks facts, evidence, where Paul relies on intuition, constructing alternative scenarios and backstories that are confounded by the simple reality.  The objective contrasted with the subjective.

The story moves along at a steady pace, with no big moments of drama, but plenty of humour (there's a wonderful scene in a shoe shop) and always interesting.  A thought provoking period piece.

Gnoss / Lizz Carroll and Jenn Butterworth, Scots Fiddle Festival, Pleasance

This final gala concert opened with Adam Sutherland and fifteen young fiddlers from his Youth Engagement Project.  This provides training not just in the musical aspect sof performing, but also presentation and audience engagement.  So the announcements were all made by members of the group, and the arrangements were collaborative.  A chance to watch some stars of the folk future.

Orcadians Gnoss are still young too, but  now very experienced and with a well established stage presence of three jokers and the one quiet man.  Fiddle (with a bit of mandolin), flute/whistles, guitar and fast thumping bodhran combine with some sweet vocals to deliver a stirring set that had the audience roused and laughing.

Irish-American fiddler Carroll was the headline name of this year's festival, and quickly showed us exactly why she deserves that status.  Carroll is a part of the folk elite for good reason, not just as a player but also as composer, arranger and story teller.  There's wit, invention and skill to spare in her playing.  She was accompanied by one of Scotland's most brilliant (and hard working) guitarists, Jenn Butterworth, who provided her usual imaginative backing.  Carroll had sent over the tunes for Butterworth to learn, and been generous enough to ask for some of the Scot's in return, so the set had some added variety.

The finale brought the whole ensemble on stage, Carroll leading Gnoss and the Project in a mass fiddlethon, the American taking delight in traversing the stage to encourage and praise the others.  A warm gesture to end the night on.

Twelfth Day / Ross Couper and Tom Oakes, Scots Fiddle Festival, Pleasance

Twelfth Day performed as a quartet with duo Catriona Price (fiddle) and Esther Swift (harp) backed by bass and drums.  This was the launch of their most recent album and the performance combined folk, classical and pop influences into an experimental blend that's invigorating, surprising and occasionally baffling.  But they do so with such charm, humour and musicality that the oddities can be easily forgiven.  Different, but enjoyable.

Couper (fiddle) and Oakes (guitar) are a very different proposition.  True to their folk roots, but with many varied influences - inevitable with one from Shetland, the other from Devon - and a near telepathic mutuality.  It's a fast paced show, both in the music and the patter.  Both can be extremely funny, but it's the passion and power of their playing that dominates.  They can knock out a moving slow number, but the fast stuff is certainly that - fast.  Impressively and blood rousingly so.  Hugely engaging and energising.

Mairearad and Anna, Leith Folk Club

Support came from duo Peerie Faeries (Alice Dillon and Elliot Parrott), purveyors of olden ballads, with murder and the supernatural featuring heavily.  Dillon accompanied their singing on a shruti box (Indian harmonium), her guitar playing being restricted by a recent hand injury. They have pleasant enough voices, singing together, but with little by way of harmonies to add interest.  They did try to make their introductions interesting.  A decent support act, but thirty minutes felt like long enough.

Whereas I couldn't ever tire of Mairearad Green and Anna Massie.  The MC provided a hyperbolic introduction prompting Anna to announce "Better no be shite after that".  There was never any danger of such a thing occurring Ms Massie!

Mostly guitar and accordion, with a bit of fiddle from Anna and the rousing sound of the highland bagpipes in Mairearad's hands.  Massie does most of the intros, and there are few better, her natural dry wit almost a match for her musicianship.  Slow tunes, fast tunes, Massie's accompaniment is fascinating, constantly changing adding depth and counterpoint and imagination as well as rhythm.  She sings too, not the greatest of voices but she chooses her songs wisely to match her range.

Green sings a song too, her voice weaker but not without charm.  But her playing is sublime, and the pipes provide a stirring end to the evening.  This pair have been playing together for so long now their seamlessness is near telepathic.  Long may they continue to play together and provide one of the very best live acts on Scotland's folk scene.

The Tillers, Traverse

Beards and baseball caps, T-shirts and jeans, this quartet is real-deal Americana from Cincinnati, Ohio.  Two lead vocalists, one on guitar, the other swapping around between banjo, guitar, fiddle and kazoo, plus a fiddler who adds backing vocals, and a solid silent figure on double bass.

The songs are mostly their own, based around their own experiences or stories that inspired them, so there's everything from a tale of a teenage dishwasher to a tragic civil war love story, a bit of Woody Guthrie and a beautiful Cincinnati blues from the 20s.  Musically they are more about fun than flash.  Neither of the leads could be thought of as great singers, yet they fit the music perfectly and have plenty of character, and the overall sound is about the interplay of the instruments without need for fancy solos.  The set is largely uptempo, foot tapping and hand clapping and a fair bit of singalong.  They talk a lot between numbers, a fund of stories about the origins of their material and their experiences on tour being related with relish and a lot of laughs.

The Tillers are a good, honest country and bluegrass band who provide some memorable tunes and a great live experience.  Go see them next time they are back over here.

Cabaret, Festival Theatre

A few hours before the city welcomes in 1931, American writer Cliff Bradshaw (Charles Haggerty)  arrives in Berlin seeking accommodation and the peace to write his novel.  He quickly finds himself drawn into the notoriously decadent nightlife and sharing a room in the boarding house of Fraulein Schneider (Anita Harris) with English cabaret singer Sally Bowles (Kara Lily Hayworth).  Bowles performs at the Kit Kat Club, where the Emcee (John Partridge) dominates a risque show, masking political commentary behind a front of brazen eroticism.  Add in a sub plot about Frau Schneider's relationship with fruit and veg man Herr Schultz (James Paterson), and a new 'friend' of Bradshaw who gets him involved in some shady activities, and you have the bare bones of what storyline there is.

Musicals are largely about froth, and this is no exception.  When you take away the singing and dancing there isn't a lot of plot left to get your teeth into.  The first half had little else, and the second included a long solo from Harris that felt interminable.  But the final number before the interval hinted at better things to come - a clever, sinister and well staged version of Tomorrow Belongs to Me, led by Partridge,  showing the dark undercurrent of Naziism.  That was brought home more strongly in the second half as the implications of Schultz's Jewishness is made violently apparent.

Froth all right, but froth with some bubbles of substance.

Birds of Chicago, Voodoo Rooms

American Americana duo J T Nero and Allison Russell joined for this short UK tour by guitar and dobro maestro Steve Dawson.  Nero plays rhythm guitar, Russell on 5 string banjo, some ukulele and clarinet, both sing and write the songs and tell stories.  Their songwriting tends towards the personal, the emotional, and that brings a genuine passion to their vocals.  The voices blend well, Nero's near Waits-like gruffness a sharp contrast to the soulful power of his companion.  Dawson adds a layer of complexity to the melodies, and some wonderful solos.  A simple highlight came when Nero wandered off to leaving Allison to sing in French (she's originally from the Montreal area) with sympathetic accompaniment from Dawson, and the two combined well again when guitar and clarinet played off one another.

In the face of a flaccid Edinburgh audience Nero and Russell battled hard to bring entertainment beyond their music and gradually succeeded in winning over a tough crowd.  There's a lot of history to their songs, a strong sense of the colonial and slave based past that shaped much of what North America, and particularly the US, has become today.  They care deeply about the future and write and sing about what they feel.  An impressive set and well worth seeing should they turn up here again.