Penelope and Madeleine Solomon sing and sketch their way
through an hour's worth of entertainment accompanied by a fine three-piece ensemble
of button accordion, snare drum and double bass. This trio can certainly
klezmer (klezmer being Jewish secular music, deriving from kleys (a vessel) and mer (song), i.e., song for drinking occasions).
This reviewer is liable to react like a Bisto Kid to a whiff of gravy at mere mention of klezmer, but even if
you're new to the sound, its raucous charm should be more than enough to take
you through an hour with these engaging siblings and their guest (Josh Howie on
the night reviewed).
It's one of the constant delights of the Fringe to discover
shows which appear to have no Fringe ancestry - which appear on the apparent
whim of their perpetrators and stand in unabashed contrast to the headlong rush
toward monochrome mainstreaming. 'The Solomon Sisters' is one such.
Penelope and Madeleine are fine songstresses, and both
contemporary and traditional material get a fair airing and good treatment from
the aforesaid trio. The sketches don't work quite as successfully, it has to be
said, (an Essex Girl Jewish convert and Antipodean folklorist reaffirming her
Jewish rots respectively), nor do they benefit from their reprise at later
points in the show.
Josh Howie worked his short guest spot to better effect, some
of his 'anti-semantic' barbs marking him as a comedian from whom the best may
yet be to come, although it wasn't clear his audience on the night had quite
worked out 'where he was coming from' before his allotted span was up.
'The Solomon Sisters' is good old-fashioned cabaret, built,
one suspects, to appeal to audiences with an appetite for light entertainment of
a fairly familiar kind. There's nothing wrong with entertainment, my Jewish
director friend frequently reminds me, when seriousness looks in danger of
getting the upper hand, and of course she's perfectly right. Take a little time out and enjoy the cabaret.
Dates: 1-27 August, 8.20pm
Copyright Bill Dunlop 2007, published on EdinburghGuide.com August 2007