The sight of audience members knitting in the queue should probably have warned me that Stitch In Time had found its people.
I went along largely because my friend works in the crafting industry and felt almost duty-bound to attend. I’m not a knitter, so I expected a charming novelty. What I got was a joyous, surprisingly fascinating hour of musical history.
Canadian singer Melanie Gall bounds onto the stage in 1940’s-inspired costume, complete with a gloriously eccentric knitting-themed straw hat, and immediately fills the room with energy. Her beautiful voice gives real quality to a programme of wartime knitting songs, while her humour and cheekiness stop the historical material ever becoming worthy or dry.
The real revelation is that these songs ever existed at all. During the World Wars, knitting socks and other garments for servicemen became an important part of the civilian war effort, inspiring a whole repertoire of popular songs. Gall has researched and revived this largely forgotten material, mixing it with stories from her own life and the unlikely journey that has taken her around the world performing it.
It is a simple concept, but one delivered with such warmth, musical skill and personality that it works beautifully.
I arrived knowing virtually nothing about knitting and left understanding why there are songs about it. More importantly, I left smiling. That is quite an achievement for this early on a Fringe morning!
Stitch In Time: A Knitting Cabaret, 09:45, The Space @ Surgeons’ Hall, until August 29
Stitch in Time: A Knitting Cabaret | Edinburgh Festival Fringe
