F E S T I VA L M U S I C | Tim Vine & Al Murray
B A N D O N T H E F U N
Two of the Fringe’s best-loved comedians are showing their musical side as Tim Vine becomes Plastic Elvis and Al Murray drums with his group Fat Cops. Murray Robertson hears from them both about taking music seriously-ish
M YS T E RY M A N Stewart Smith talks to Sarah Jane Morris about the complex but beautiful career of folk-rocker John Martyn whose work has inspired a new Fringe stage show
Sarah Jane Morris was 14 when she first encountered the music of John Martyn. ‘I had watched The Old Grey Whistle Test,’ she recalls, ‘and I remember how beautiful his voice was. He was performing “May You Never” – and I had developed one of those teenage crushes because he was so beautiful – but his voice spoke to me. It was just such a beautiful warm, chocolatey sound.’ Over subsequent decades, Martyn’s music
would become a backdrop to her own life as she developed as a singer-songwriter. For several years, Morris – who found chart success in the 1980s with the Communards and has continued to plough an individual path through jazz, soul and R&B – has closed her concerts with Martyn’s ‘Don’t Want to Know’. So when Morris found herself looking to take a breather from her own songwriting, a John Martyn project made perfect sense. The stage show of Sweet Little Mystery is directed by comedian Mark Thomas, an old friend from the days of miners’ strike benefits and Red Wedge. Morris doesn’t want to give too much away about the show, but she does reveal that one of the filmed interviewees is the great singer Linda Thompson, who grew up with Martyn in Glasgow and moved to London at the same time.
‘I met up with his lovely sister who had a whole other take on him,’ adds Morris. ‘I’ve become friends with Beverley, John’s first wife, and you begin to piece together the man: a very complex character. But I think that “Solid Air”, the song that he wrote to Nick Drake, has to be one of the most brilliant songs written in friendship to someone with mental-health issues. I think it’s genius. I don’t think songwriting gets much better than that.’ n Sarah Jane Morris: Sweet Little Mystery, Assembly George Square Studios, 2–11 Aug, 6.45pm, £13–£14 (£12–£13). Previews 31 Jul & 1 Aug, £10.
‘I ’m pretty sure I’m the first person to do a tribute act of Elvis Presley,’ reckons Tim Vine, possibly not all that seriously. ‘You might wanna look that up but I’ve got a feeling that I’m breaking new ground here.’ The King has been Vine’s favourite performer since he was ‘very, very young’ and he relishes the prospect of performing as Elvis. ‘It’s a vanity project,’ he levels. ‘But the great thing about Edinburgh is that you get to just go and do things for the heck of it. I’ve done it three or four times and it always seems to sort of work, and I don’t know why that is.’
Vine is adamant that, although his tribute is funny, it’s not a send-up. ‘I don’t think it’s disrespectful to Elvis,’ he explains. ‘I’m not there to make crass jokes about the latter stages of his life or anything like that. I think part of the humour of it, according to some friends of mine who’ve seen it, is that I really do appear to be trying extremely hard to be doing the best impression I possibly can of Elvis Presley.’ Uniquely, Vine is accompanied in his endeavour by a bona fide Elvis Presley songwriter. David Martin joins the comedian for a duet on ‘Let’s Be Friends’, a song Martin wrote for one of Presley’s final films, Change of Habit. ‘What’s new for me is doing an entire evening of it with a live band, and they’re so brilliant. To say that it’s a vanity project is fair,’ laughs Vine. ‘I often think it’s me getting the most out of this whole thing; I’m paying for the experience and, for me, it’s worth every penny!’
‘We look like a dad band, we smell like a dad band but we are not a dad band,’ insists Al Murray who plays drums in ‘not-dad band’ Fat Cops. ‘The fact that we all have families and children is unrelated to everything else to do with the band.’ The genesis of Fat Cops is highly
98 THE LIST FESTIVAL 31 Jul–7 Aug 2019
unusual and, in these politically turbulent times, somewhat reassuring. ‘It’s a bunch of people who met on Twitter, arguing with each other about politics,’ recalls Murray. ‘We then realised that actually we were all having fun, and we had more in common being into music and into each other’s wit and humour. It’s the strangest thing: I’m in a band from Scotland and I live in West London.’
The group initially coalesced over the issue of Scottish independence. While Euan McColm (guitar) and Bobby Hodgens aka Bobby Bluebell (keyboards) were at either end of that debate, they bridged the gap by talking about music, and by trading songs they’d written via email. The band’s influences include Happy Mondays, Deacon Blue and the Cramps. ‘There are lots of different things going on all at once which reflects that there’s six people writing in the band and six people coming at it, all from their own direction,’ says Murray. ‘And I think that’s why it works so well.’ And do the band members still talk politics when they meet up for rehearsals? Murray emphatically says ‘no’ 12 times. ‘That’s all thoroughly passed, and the point of the band is the music,’ he says, evidently relieved. ‘The really lovely thing about it is that, although we did all meet on Twitter which you imagine is a boiling foment of people who want to throttle each other, that’s not what we’re like at all. Or at least that’s not what we’re like at the moment: you never know . . . ’
Tim Vine Presents: Plastic Elvis Live in Concert!, Underbelly’s Circus Hub, 7 Aug, 10.15pm, £15.50 (£14.50)
Fat Cops, Assembly George Square Gardens, 7 Aug, 11.55pm, £13 (£12).