It is one thing to hear autobiographical accounts at the Edinburgh Fringe from people who are not yet forty years of age. It is quite another to hear one from someone who is old enough to describe with a mixture of trepidation and glee the pluses and minuses of the modern dating scene – the former because dating these days is markedly different to what it used to be, and the latter because, at pensionable age, one does not need to concern oneself with meeting a prospective partner’s parents.
If you’ve ever seen the musical Come From Away, audiences who attend that show are introduced to Gander, Newfoundland, which still has a large international airport but is now not nearly as busy as it used to be. Newfoundland gets a passing reference in this show, but it was indicative, at least to me, of how much things have changed, well within living memory. Transatlantic flights used to stop over in Gander to refuel, before jet aeroplanes had large enough fuel tanks to fly directly from European airports to the United States nonstop.
There was quite a culture shock when Malcolm Windsor first went to America, having secured employment in Los Angeles because he had an interest in science and the space race was in full flow. The inclusion of songs from the time helped create a Sixties atmosphere to the storytelling, including some standards and yet avoiding the usual – and in my humble opinion, somewhat overused choices when it comes to taking an audience back to the 1960s – songs from ‘the British invasion’. Instead, there were distinctly American songs, which kept the show grounded and, above all, relevant.
The details of Windsor’s personal and professional lives are more than sufficiently entertaining to justify writing a memoir, if he were so inclined. As for this show, it was a gentle and charming journey down memory lane.
Jazz cabaret written and performed by Malcolm Windsor tells, in songs and stories, of his adventures in America in the 1960s. He is accompanied by two fine musicians Jeremy Thorp (piano) and Nick Gent (guitar) with songs of the era by Sinatra, Ella, Nat King Cole. Who knew that starting work at sixteen in the lab of a chocolate factory would lead to a scientific job in California, thanks to Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, and an international diplomatic post in Edinburgh? A fascinating, entertaining story told with lovely songs, fun and joy.
ROVING MAD: AMERICA AND BACK IN THE 1960S
theSpace on the Mile at the Edinburgh Fringe
11 to 16 August 2025
