Suddenly it seems like it’s 1995 again. Pulp have a new record out, Suede are lined up to play Radio 2 in the Park next month, Chris Evans is on the radio (mind you, he’s never been off it) and Oasis are once more the biggest band in Britain and currently playing Murrayfield. (Chronologically speaking, Oasis’s ascension to that position came at Knebworth Park which was, in fact, in 1996, but let’s not allow facts to get in the way of an intro).
So, you can’t fault music journalist and comedian Marc Burrows’s timing for his Fringe show, The Britpop Hour. A pop history lesson with jokes (and graphs and singing and guitar-playing and very impressive Jarvis Cocker dancing), Burrows has crafted a nostalgic tribute to the music he fell in love with as a teenager.
It’s a labour of love, obviously. Burrows defines the term Britpop (that’s where the graphs come in), tells us what it was and what it wasn’t (NB, the Spice Girls, Radiohead, Napalm Death don’t qualify). And it all ends in a mass singalong.
This, it might not even need stating, is a show for fans essentially. As Burrows admits, he gets a certain demographic (big on people in their forties and fifties). That might be why the Liam Gallagher lines go over better than the Alan Bennett jokes (though I quite liked his Bennett impersonation myself).
But – the odd waspish line apart – it’s warm-hearted and entertaining and welcoming. Burrows is honest enough to admit that Britpop on the whole was a bit too white, a bit too blokey. But he also suggests it was a unifying force in pop culture. The last one perhaps.
This show is a time machine that will whisk you back there. Then again, there are a million people off to see Oasis in the UK this summer. The year 1995 is still with us.
It makes you think, if the historical parallels hold, it can’t be long now before we get a Labour government. Oh, no, wait a minute …
The Britpop Hour, Underbelly, Bristo Square – Dairy Room, 18.10pm, until August 25
https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/the-britpop-hour-with-marc-burrows
