John Scott checks out Tom Veck’s Songs in the Key of Strife at the Edinburgh Fringe.
If you have been following my Fringe coverage (yeah, I know, but just pretend for my sake) then you’ll remember my chance encounter with a performer on the number 7 bus. That performer was Tom Veck and I went to see his show tonight.
Tom opens his show with a song about his eleven-year-old son, Otis. He reckons we will recognise the tune. Veck’s skill as a comedian allows us to work out the punchline in the song a fraction of a second before he delivers it: “I’m walking on Lego, and it doesn’t feel good”.
Veck turns his attention to all the things that are going on in the world at this precise moment: people are being born, dying, having sex. His next song explores some of the other things that are very probably happening before turning to those that are almost certainly not: “No one right now is carving Sanskrit translations of Roxanne into a wheel of Brie, no one right now is pushing a banana through a keyhole while wearing boxing gloves”. Even in an infinite number of infinite universes, it seems hard to argue with that.
Veck’s songs pinpoint the humour in a number of highly-relatable scenarios. We’ve all suffered that very specific frustration of a dining partner declaring themselves far too full to order a pudding and then immediately picking away at ours. I imagine the Germans have a word for it. We don’t, but luckily Tom has a song about it.
Another song about needing a wee on a long care journey takes a surprising and hilarious twist. I’ll not spoil the surprise; go to one of Tom’s shows and find out for yourself. Tom loves a car boot sale and has brought along some of his more exotic bargains to give away as raffle prizes. I have the great fortune to win a small ceramic Dickensian street urchin. Yay. As a detour from songs based on his own experiences, Tom has been taking his songwriting machine ,The Songamathingy, into the streets of Edinburgh.
Complete strangers are asked to reveal a Dark Secret, a Disgusting Habit, an Embarrassing Memory or a Secret Fantasy which, with the aid of The Songamathingy, Tom turns into a song to be performed at that night’s show. That people are prepared to do this could possibly form the basis of a Doctoral theses in psychology or social anthropology but in the meantime it provides us with a whole load of laughs to top off a thoroughly entertaining show.
Tom Veck as been nominated in the Best Newcomer category of the Edinburgh Comedy Awards. See him now while he is still languishing in obscurity.
Now, where did I put that wheel of Brie? 
John Scott
