It is easy to forget that in the tempest of the Edinburgh Festival, between the international plays and the famous comedians, there is still a strong Scottish backbone to many of the performances at the festival. Scottish Songwriters In the Round reminds viewers of the native powerhouse of the Fringe: Scots themselves. Although half the musicians performing are Englishmen who have found lives in Scotland, this is a quartet influenced by their time here. Songwriter Simon Kempston is driven by his belief in Scottish Independence, singer Tom Fairnie is influenced by the tradition of the past, Englishman Mark Barnett writes a love letter to Edinburgh in every song, while English musician Dave Gibb’s life has been filled with heartbreak against the backdrop of Scotland. All of them are here to sing about their Scottish experience.
Set in Edinburgh’s oldest concert venue, the beautiful St Cecilia’s Hall, these four musicians fill the space with warm melodies that at times are phantom rivers running through a metropolis, at times winds from the countryside, and at times like fragments of the heart handed to you. They were clearly singers who have known hard graft and they appreciate their audience; at every point, even as a lone reviewer sat in a corner drinking free wine, I felt as much a part of the event as their wives, friends and local pub-goers who they intimated had been watching them perform for years.
There are times when bad pub-performer’s habits creep into these otherwise solid performances. One performer could not stop interrupting his own songs with little remarks, which was frustrating because his songs were about important emotional events in his life like the death of his mother and the break-up of a crucial relationship. The diction of some of the other performers also suffered. Although this is not the best musical performance of the Fringe, Scottish Songwriters In the Round is still worth a look during its short run.
