[2012085] The Jane Austen Argument present: Somewhere Under The Rainbow
The Jane Austen Argument @ The Big Slapple – Apollo Theatre
10:30pm, Sun 4 Mar 2012
I’d heard the “Jane Austen Argument” name bandied around a bit previously – perhaps previous cabaret festivals? – but had never actually investigated their music; after reading their précis and seeing mention of their 2010 Fringe Award win, I thought it high time that I gave them a try… and besides, I love a good argument.
As I eyeball the small crowd I see the slightly glazed eyes and hazy grins of the converted; I get the feeling that everyone except me is already a devoted fan. There’s a bit of seat jostling once we’re let into the cavernous Apollo, but the forty or fifty rabid followers that turned up were all afforded prime positions.
And when The Jane Austen Argument – Tom Dickins and Jen Kingwell – enter the room from opposite sides of the stage, each strumming a ukelele, the crowd go wild. Their appearance is two-thirds goth, one third cabaret: dark colours and eyeliner offset by flourishes of flamboyance. A gentle song to open with – half-happy, half-mournful, with the jaunty ukeleles supporting their harmonies – and I’m definitely curious.
And then comes the rest of the band – bass, drums, and… cello. Yes, the cello makes an appearance and I internally swoon with delight; nothing can go wrong now, I figured. They’ve won me over, purely by leveraging the greatest instrument ever created.
But the nice thing is that I would’ve been perfectly happy with the performance sans cello. The Jane Austen Argument’s songs are really lovely, their lyrics (defying their appearance) are not overly riddled with angst, and their stage manner is really quite approachable – there’s many a story told of Tom & Jen’s experiences taking their music on the road, of the people they’ve met, the places they’ve seen.
There is the odd slip into goth bombast – one or two songs are steeped in melancholy, underpinned by mournful piano lines – but then there’s the audience-shoutalong of When the End of the World Came, and a cover of One Line (normally I’m quite precious about people covering PJ Harvey, but that particular track is one of my least favourite of her songs… and the ‘Argument did quite a good job of it). But the most impressive song of the night was the finale, Under the Rainbow – theatrical in their presentation, a massive wall of noise builds up for a crescendo… before simmering back down in a well-controlled exercise of leaving the audience wanting more.
I really quite enjoyed The Jane Austen Argument, though I suspect that my head was not in the most receptive of moods after The Boy James. Still, I rushed to buy a CD, but didn’t join the mailing list; read into that what you will.