Dru Cripps walks into the room looking straight from the 1980s, with a boiler suit, baseball cap, round circular glasses, badges and a complicated lit-up machine slung around him. No, this isn’t Ghostbusters, it’s much more musical than that.
At first, I wasn’t sure if Dru spoke, as he conducted and mimed the crowd through a series of sound effects and instruments. Little does the audience know this is just a warm-up. Through a microphone attached to the looper machine around his belt, Dru creates our first track of the evening. I say our as the whole audience gets involved, adding drumbeats, a very disturbing guitar, vocals and more.
After being serenaded with some very interesting instrument impressions, Dru finally speaks, but if you think this means your job of being a vocal instrument is over, you are sorely mistaken. Dru goes around the room, selecting audience members, asking them a bit about themselves and their favourite style of music, he then mixes it all up into an a cappella looped song. Most of the hard work is down to Dru; his instrument impressions are genuinely impressive, but the occasional victim is still chosen from the audience to add their own flair to the song. Sometimes a jazz scat, maybe a trumpet, or, in my case, the bagpipes (it was my fault for the suggestion).
Dru Cripps blends the creativity of a live musical performance with the spontaneity of audience participation. This unique approach doesn’t just encourage listening but also allows everyone to be an integral part of the performance, which is full of funny instrument impressions and quirky ideas.
Dru Cripps: Juicy Bits 21.00, Hoots @ Potterrow, until August 25
https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/dru-cripps-juicy-bits
