Assembly Rooms, Edinburgh
Four stars
‘Be warned’, goes the disclaimer for one of the Burns&Beyond festival’s flagship shows this year. ‘This will not be your normal Burns Night or gig!’ Callum Easter’s post modern variety show that follows pretty much sums up the ‘Beyond’ bit of the festival name.
With Easter clad in white and carrying what turns out to be a joke book, he sets himself up as mine host and top turn of a night that culminates in a killer set of accordion driven Caledonian blues, electronic No Wave primitivism and off kilter David Lynch themes in waiting. With the action beamed out on a screen behind him, Easter opens with a solo number before his band The Roulettes join him on twin drums to conjure up something resembling Suicide playing a ceilidh.
The haggis is piped in by Fraser Fifield accompanied by a whip wielding Mistress Inka, aka Hettie Noir, vocalist with Edinburgh supergroup, Scorpio Leisure. There are no cheesy showbiz duets forthcoming, alas, as Mistress Inka flails a plugged-in Flying V guitar into submission on its stand, causing amplified reverberations to erupt around the room.
Jazz trombonist Chris Greive improvises to a ten-minute film of a motorbike chase, before poet Michael Pedersen steps up as last minute replacement for a sadly indisposed Phill Jupitus. Following more songs by Easter, including what might well be a noseflute solo, drummer Edwin McLachlan pounds out a spontaneous accompaniment to a big screen car chase. Film buffs in attendance advise me this is from Philip D’Antoni’s 1973 feature, The Seven-Ups. D’Antoni also loved a car chase as producer of the better-known Bullitt, and The French Connection.
Another last minute addition, Stephanie Strachan, belts out a dramatic Bridge Over Troubled Water while psychic medium and palm reader James Craig Page stacks stones beside her prior to Easter and the Roulettes’ grand finale. This all falls somewhere between a Dadaist show-and-tell, 1980s alternative cabaret and novelty night at the local social club. Putting such a mixed bag of concept-driven material into a civic space is a glorious sleight of hand that makes you hope Easter’s TV funnies go to series. Don’t touch that dial.
The Herald, January 27th, 2024
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