Theatre review: Brocante Sonore

This is one of those pleasing performance pieces that turn up by the very small handful every August in Edinburgh. Possibly of initial interest only to the few who are intrigued by the high concept, they prove to be the kind of shows that any audience will marvel readily at, like, for example, past spectaculars such as Stomp or Fuerzabruta. Brocante Sonore: The Mechanicians deserves success simply thanks to its sheer ambition and the flawlessness of its execution.

The cast of nine men, dressed in overalls, shamble on stage with the chin-scratching consideration of car mechanics pondering a particularly crippling insurance quote. They slowly begin to shake, tap, rattle, strum and roll the collection of gaffer-taped junk lying around them. A beat develops, then a more complex rhythm, and then a virtual orchestral symphony of brass, acoustic and percussive sounds.

Except the horns are lengths of lead piping having air blown through them; the guitar appears to be merely a box with some wire strung across it and the percussion is the pinging of those wine bottles being struck or the snare-drum hiss of the chickpeas zig-zagging down a cascade of rain-water guttering.

But this show is so much more than simply an exercise in being inventive with the mechanical possibilities of sound imbued with real warmth and humour to the performances – witness the way the performers are forced to speed up and speed up further into a whistle-blowing traintrack clatter by their foreman, or are hoodwinked out of a game of musical chairs by the same cheating employer.

By accident or design, these men are somehow blue-collar socialist folk songwriters of the industrial age.

DAVID POLLOCK

Until 31 August. Today 7:30pm.