Music: Jamie T

An inflated condom flies around the room, someone throws a porn magazine onstage and the crowd chants “Jamie! Jamie! Jamie fucking T!” The highbrow part of the Fringe this isn’t, but what a show! Less arrogant and surprisingly more lucid than you might expect, Jamie T is a ferocious performer, tearing around the stage like a scrappy terrier. He plays at breakneck speed, his not-quite-raps becoming insanely fast tongue twisters, leaving half of the crowd open-mouthed as the likes of "Sheila and Pacemaker" are given breathless, high-velocity makeovers. The other half try to keep up. They can’t.
The gig equivalent of a frantic shag in an alleyway, the atmosphere is almost post-coital when the lights come up, and as the crowd pour out into the afterglow, it feels like something truly special happened here tonight. Exhilarating, vital and utterly alive, this is as close to the perfect gig as you’re ever likely to get.

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