Known for his ability to spin satiric gold from the most unpromising of topical trivia on BBC Radio 4’s ‘The Now Show’, Mitch Benn played to a small (ish) but certainly appreciative audience at The Queen’s Hall. Although the well-crafted satirical stiletto is Benn’s weapon of choice on air, the two hour set, ably supported by his very own Distractions (Kirsty Newton and Tash Bayliss), glowed with a relaxed rather than enraged intensity.
For the obvious numbers of fans in the audience this was a chance to reprise some golden moments from the Benn back catalogue. There are undeniably some belters.
Whether offering a very contemporary (and potentially rude) take on relationship break-up, fretwork echoes of Springsteen or Morrison, or one of the finest five-minute prog-rock operas around - his version of ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’ - Benn lets his audience know exactly what sort of hands they are in.
Possibly the closest these islands now have to any sort of chansonnier, Benn may be the only current candidate for the mantle of the late Jake Thackeray.
Although Benn isn’t plugging a new album on this tour, he’s passionately plugging a new song, ‘Proud of the BBC’, which he patently is, not simply because it’s his major employer at the moment, but as he lists its many achievements, because he thinks we all should be too.
Available as download from his website by the time this review is posted, Benn’s cunning plan is to get enough good folk buying this to gain it a place in the top twenty, thus giving pause to those who imagine pure ‘market forces’ would teach the Buggers Broadcasting Communism a thing or two, and in any case, Murdochian standards of taste are all the underclasses deserve by way of ‘entertainment’. This is a shameless plug encouraging readers to buy a copy. Your children might just thank you. Oh, and there are T shirts as well.
Although this is clearly a positive review, it would be no review without a cavil; Benn is a very intelligent performer, comfortable in a range of musical genre and a highly creative individual; nevertheless, it’s sometimes frustrating to discover one is caught in a post-Reithian time-warp of enveloping comfort, sharing the preferences and prejudices of the performer.
Having taken the Beeb shilling and been shrewd enough to recognise the boundaries beyond which it would be dangerous to push, Benn seems to have become a ‘Prisoner’ himself in a partly self-constructed Portmerion of the chattering class it is difficult for him to escape.
That said, it came as a bit of a surprise to almost dissolve in tears as the encore turned into Benn’s fine wee tribute to the late John Peel; ‘A minute’s noise for John’. Anyone who can produce such thoughtful work at short notice but with increasing meaning in these straitening times deserves our seriously amused attention.
First published on EdinburghGuide.com 2010