The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
PERTHSHIRE
Music from the 80s and 90s is set to entertain the people of Perthshire this summer
From the nostalgic Rewind Music Festival to Scone Game Fair – and plenty more besides.
For those who want to take in a gig in Perthshire over the summer, a working knowledge of who was popular in music during the closing decades of the 20th Century might help – for the biggest groups playing in the area over the next few months are some well-established names with hardworking careers of two decades and more behind them.
To kick off, Ben Folds & A Piano (July 17, Perth Theatre) is an intimate solo show – with a piano – by the sometime leader of the Ben Folds Five, who first broke in 1996 with the hit single Underground.
Seven albums with the Five and under his own name later, as well as a number of collaborations with artists as disparate as Regina
Difford will perform music from his time in Squeeze Spektor, William Shatner and Neil Gaiman, he’s now the artistic advisor to the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, DC.
Anyone who followed Britpop, meanwhile, knows Ocean Colour Scene (July 31, Perth Concert Hall), the Birmingham-formed group who wrote The Riverboat Song – also known as the soundtrack to Chris Evans’ 1990s-defining chat show TFI Friday – and partly formed Paul Weller’s backing band, before fame in their own right with 1996’s Moseley Shoals album.
Huge success at the time has allowed them to carve out a far-reaching career, with 10 fanfavourite albums and a reputation as dependable performers on the live stage preceding them.
Another big name with an even longer-standing career is Chris Difford (August 3, Birnam Arts, Dunkeld), whose solo Up The Junction tour will feature music from both his own solo career and from his time in Squeeze, the latter including hits like the tour’s title song, Cool For Cats and more.
Those who know his shows will also know he’s a famous raconteur in his own right.
For folk fans, meanwhile, one of Scotland’s most celebrated duos is on tour again – with the 35th anniversary of their time together as a celebrated Scots screen and recording presence approaching rapidly, Aly Bain and Phil Cunningham play Pitlochry Festival Theatre, August 4, and Perth Concert Hall, August 9.
Remaining with folk outfits that have merged the traditional with a fresh new spin on the sound for mainstream audiences, energetic fiddle troupe Blazin’ Fiddles are at Pitlochry Festival Theatre on August 18.
On theatre stages, big shows across Scotland tend to wind down while the Edinburgh Festival sucks up a lot of the activity, but Pitlochry Festival Theatre’s summer repertory programme is an evergreen and unaffected highlight of the summer months in Perthshire.
Already ongoing is Summer Holiday (until October 5, PFT), the musical version of the 1963 Cliff Richard film, while also imminent is Noel Coward’s Blithe Spirit (until September 28, PFT), the supernatural comedy in which a novelist’s dead wife is conjured up during a séance.
These aren’t the only joys to look forward to in Pitlochry over the coming months, with further ongoing shows including Alan Plater’s Blonde Bombshells of 1943 (until September 27, PFT), which tells of bandleader Betty’s attempts to recruit an all-new band to appear with her on the BBC during the Second World War.
Based on the television film starring Judi Dench, it features period music from Glenn Miller, George Formby and the Andrews Sisters.
Arthur Miller’s The Crucible (until September 27, PFT) is one of the 20th Century’s most timeless dramas, detailing the Salem witch hunts, while Heritage (July 25 to September 26, PFT) is a more contemporary piece of theatre by writer Nicola McCartney that was first staged in 1998 and tells the
story of a young woman leaving Ulster to settle in Canada in 1914.
Outside music and theatre, one more big name appearing a couple of times in Perthshire over the summer is Jack Dee (July 6, Birnam Arts, Dunkeld; July 16, Inchyra Arts Club), whose brief tour of small Scottish venues is part of a self-billed Work in Progress tour.
With an extensive television CV that includes sitcom roles like Lead Balloon and presenting gigs on his own The Jack Dee Show and Jack Dee’s Helpdesk, these shows should be a very rare chance to see a comedian of Dee’s profile in relatively small and intimate spaces.