Korean showcase hits right note
Music in an Asian key brings tale to life, while fascinating array of instruments invites us to tango, writes Tim Cornwell
CHILDREN’S SHOWS
The Little Musician Assembly Roxy (Venue 139)
MUSIC
Sweet Tango Assembly Checkpoint (Venue 322)
THEATRE
About Lady White Fox With Nine Tales Assembly George Square Studios (Venue 17)
A little girl heads off to find the sun, helped by a flock of glove puppets of greenish hue and her recorder, to play it back to earth (a lesson to all good children to practise). Not entirely clear how she pulls it off but it’s the journey that matters.
The Little Musician isa bit of a slow-burn show that is firmly for the younger child but it comes alive with the delightfully stupid Baba Song, an amiable puppet bear and the three stooges our heroine encounters along the way. They tried to pinch her recorder, but she wins them over with the bear.
It is nicely non-threatening with uncomplicated sets – moving, echoing mountains, amusing water sound effects, shafts of sunlight. South Korea’s Brush Theatre have been operating for about two years, and the heavily accented English adds to the fun. The show builds to a fine dramatic finish with a thunderous sea of bubble wrap and blow-up icebergs (do NOT try this at home). Kim Mi-young is a sympathetic lead while Kim Sung-hawn, the leading man, is a fine comic actor. Cho Ye-kyung is at the piano with a pleasing score.
What could be more Edinburgh than a delicious Korean group belting out tango tunes with a phenomenal line-up of traditional instruments? Sweet Tango does just that. Lead singer and violinist Lee So-yun has a sultry, brassy voice and a big personality to go with swishing pink skirts, telling us how an Edinburgh gig is the stuff of dreams. Arsu, she teaches, is Korean for “nice”, and soon we are chorusing “arsu” on command, and swaying our phone torches for a bit of “k-pop” atmosphere.
The line-up begins with El Día Que Me Quieras, The Day That You Will Love Me, from the 1935 film of the same name. Equally beautiful is the contrasting Korean melody The Song of the Moon and Love. Four of the numbers in the song list of Spanish and Korean tunes were written by the musicians.
The haegeum is a twostringed Korean instrument played like a fiddle but a highlight was to see Lee Seung-mi deliver an extraordinary variety of sounds. In contrast the ajaeng played by Seo Yeonjoo is a fascinating twisted wooden zither with multiple strings, while the wooden daegeum flute played by Kim Ki-uk ranged from sweet and soft to edgy heights in a more contemporary, challenging composition.
Sweet Tango has the making of a Fringe classic, though the stage act needs to find its natural flow and loosen up a little. It’s hard to get a tango party going at two in the afternoon; this is a music show, not a dance show, with a single player despatched to tango with a man in the audience. There’s some fairly limp chat about their handsome flute player. Great to learn about the instruments and the players, but too much unnecessary chat when you only want to hear more of this music.
About Lady White Fox with Nine Tales has the appealingly macabre premise of an evil whitefaced lady fox bent on becoming human through snacking on 1,000 livers, or human souls. It’s bold and dramatic, but just a little hard to follow from a back row through epic, poetic and partially obscured surtitles. Clearly Shakespearean overtones as her obsession with the spoils of human life sees her lure a close friend of the king into a murderous plot, overcoming his moral qualms.
Quite a spectacle, but not quite sure who came out on top in a feast of liver and guts. The Little Musician until 26 August, today 12:15pm. Sweet Tango until 26 August, today 2pm. About Lady White Fox With Nine Tales until 27 August, today 1pm.