Songs For a New World

Songs For a New World is a perennially popular Fringe favourite, a revue of cabaret numbers by Jason Robert Brown loosely themed around the American experience. It feels that the company here have picked it off the shelf, hoping for a cheap and easy ticket to Edinburgh. There is plenty of effort; they are trying very hard; but it is an uncomfortable school-play of a show, empty vocals interpolated with painful attempts at harmony.

Though the singing is weak, the acting is bad, and not for a moment could anyone come to believe in the reality of the characters, played by the cast of five young actors. Indeed it’s hard to tell who or what they were supposed to be. On the song Steam Train, about a basketball prodigy, some humour is made of the actor’s lack of skill, co-ordination, physicality or charisma; it is a poor apology for falling so far short of what performance demands.

The four-piece band are competent, but are kept offstage, which is a poor decision considering that almost no effort has been made with the set, costumes, lighting or choreography, leaving very little to look at. The microphones clicked and buzzed in and out of function, and sound levels fluctuated clumsily throughout, though this may have been a temporary glitch.

All in all, I’d give this one a miss.