*****
There are Edinburgh Fringe legends and then there is Arthur Smith. But you'll have to be either quick or an insomniac to catch Smith at this year's Fringe. His updated version of his 2000 show Arthur Smith Sings Leonard Cohen finishes tomorrow (Aug 18) and then the only way to catch the lugubrious laugh-machine is to take part in his traditional late-night Royal Mile walk this Saturday night. I'd recommend doing both.
The stage show is a wonderful mix of tribute, homage and candid autobiography*. And it is in the Cabaret Bar – my favourite venue at The Pleasance. Smith, whose crooning voice is not a million miles from Cohen's endearing dulcet tones, draws on the singer's oeuvre to tell his own life story and, in particular, his relationship with his mother and chart her gentle descent into dementia.
It is sentimental and very moving towards the end but also very funny. Smith is an effortless performer, or at least he make it look effortless. There is actually a lot more going on here than just a badly dressed wrinkly bloke singing cover versions of songs that I haven't heard since I was in my hall of residence sitting on my unmade bed with the light out.
As is to be expected there is plenty of Smith's trademark irreverence on display. Veteran Vulcan Leonard Nimoy's self-obsessed poetry is a particular target and the craggy-faced Smith is not averse to sending himself up too, bemoaning the fact that HD TV killed off his screen career. Things have never been the same financially since he lost his gig as the voice of pro-biotic yoghurt, so he can relate to Cohen's calamity when he had lost his retirement money due to an ex-manager running off with it.
Most of the songs – I'm Your Man, Tower of Song, Take This Waltz – are delivered relatively straight, although Smith does imagine Cohen despairing at the ubiquity of having to sing Hallelujah all the time. He saves most of his bile for an attack on the relentless enthusiasm of some - name names, no pack drill – young comics. Smith tries to muster some gusto onstage to be like them, but just can't put any welly into it.
He is far, far better being himself and looking back on life with a poetic flourish. And now that he is 13 years older than he was when he first performed it – and Cohen is, inevitably, older too – there is more of an elegaic undertow than ever. As the show draws to a close he addresses the issue of death: "The living are just the dead on holiday,"** he muses. Philosophy, music and, in a final flourish, an accordionist dressed in little more than a Leonard Nimoy mask. I'm not sure what it would all mean to an over-enthusiastic 19-year-old, but for anyone who has seen a bit of action and pondered on the mystery of human existence what more could you want from an Edinburgh Fringe show?
*In the interests of full disclosure I should say that I once appeared in an Arthur Smith show. I played a journalist who had to interview him onstage and the idea was that he would pretend to doze off as a comment on the banality of press interviews. I've often wondered if he really dozed off and wasn't faking it.
**It's a line by Belgian writer Maurice Maeterlinck. Thank you Wikipedia.
Arhur Smith Sings Leonard Cohen is at the Soho Theatre from Feb 16 - March 2, 2014. Details here.
