Fag Ends and Families

Artist: Simon Edgerton

Venue: Sir John Mills Theatre, Ipswich

Simon Egerton

It would be easy to dismiss Simon Edgerton's latest stage show Fag Ends and Families as derivative. Indeed, a lot of the patter-song material could well appear on the lips and hands of Victoria Wood or Richard Stilgoe, and before them, Flanders & Swann or Noel Coward. However, upon deeper examination, Egerton's work has a USP all of its own.

This is a story, told in song and anecdote, of a time before political correctness when the air inside and out was thick with cigarette smoke,  when women were openly floozies, and men with homosexual leanings kept their desires to themselves or at least in the shadows.

Egerton is at pains to explain that Fag Ends and Families isn't autobiographical, but rather a collection of memories. It tells of a boy with a loose-moraled mother and a closeted gay father, brutally aware that he's always going to be second best to a dead elder brother and with no clear aim in life.

Yes, the opening numbers do seem strangely familiar and you fully expect to see Victoria Wood bouncing about on her piano stool; however, things quickly take a darker turn and the clever story songs become heartfelt ballads of a chaotic childhood.

The songs, Egerton explains in the subsequent talkback session, come from his collection Now We Are Older, the stories carefully crafted to fit by both the performer and his director, Lawrence Evans.

Whether the genteel ambience of Fag Ends and Families will survive the rigours of the Edinburgh Fringe remains to be seen but its opening in Ipswich has been a commendable one.

PAUL COUCH