Edinburgh Fringe 2025
Low Down
The Gael at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2025 is a musical show featuring songs from Scotland and Ireland. It combines traditional Gaelic melodies with modern music styles. The performance showcases the rich Gaelic heritage of both countries through its soundtrack and projected visuals, telling a historical tale with a familiar and occasionally surprising music set At the heart is the multi-talented fringe legend Elsa Jean McTaggart..
Review
Elsa Jean McTaggart’s new concept show weaves a fascinating tale of the rise of Scotland and Ireland, the latter a place she went to live and noticed the parallel stories and also the intersections of Scottish and Irish culture, as well as the music that arose from, and underpins it. With violin, whistle, dance, song and storytelling, supported by evocative visuals, we are given a generous hour that had the audience tapping their feet, clapping and even one person up on stage dancing at our host’s invitation.
We are taken back in time, given a powerfully engaging history lesson through songs you will recognise and Elsa Jean’s original music. From jigs and reels to moody numbers, the hat is also tipped towards modern songs and I will not spoil those choices for you, suffice to say, they show that the music of these two countries has a vibrant through-line that can make present and future generations proud of, and hopefully interested in, their heritage, keeping traditions alive for future generations.
Our host has a powerful voice that can soften to almost a whisper and rise to a crescendo and it is impossible not to be infected by the music and the invitation to lean in and join in. The audience loved it, the time flew by.
Some of the visuals were a little too garish and loud and I would soften the shades and colours as the run develops. This is a theme show and it represents a solo show experiment for Elsa Jean McTaggart. It is a highly successful one. You’ll enjoy it for its core theme – the exploration of the Gael, the roots of Scotland and Island today, the variety that ventures beyond folk music into modern tunes, a show to unite the generations, to lovingly celebrate the past, the present and this build a sure future for the ongoing narrative that is Scotland and Ireland. Excellent work.
