What a wonderful man he is. Erudite in his interview, brill in his powerpoint-led show with added tube-banging (Mary Had a Little Lamb has never sounded so primitive). Pretty took us from Neanderthals to the rondo folk form to the modern one-man-band (minus drums) version of Right Said Fred. His premise was to take his audience from monkey to man, from the Monkees to Men at Work.
Robin Ince couldn’t play the midi trumpet as well as him, even though Pretty’s status as musical director for Ince’s shows may have led to Ince returning a favour and gifting him with some sharp one-liners. This is an educational show: I’d never heard of the inventor of the pop chorus, Stephen Foster, inventor of pop chorus, nor how I could confuse pseudo-jazz fans by pretending I knew the modes of Miles Davis. Pretty was impressed by one audience member’s knowledge of them, proving the sort of audience needed to follow such a show. He ultimately made the history of music fun and entertaining, and one could not ask for more, apart from the fixing of some technical glitches and a little more examination of contemporary pop that goes more deeply than Deeply Dippy. Perhaps that’s next year’s show. The Fringe needs some Pretty-ness for sure.
Steve Pretty: Origin of the Pieces
GRV
14:40, 5-29 Aug
