Edinburgh Fringe 2025
Any Objections?
Scarlett Smith – Bristol Harpist
Genre: Comedy, Live Music
Venue: Studio at C ARTS | C venues | C aquila
Festival: Edinburgh Fringe
Low Down
Scarlett Smith’s show, Any Objections?, is part stand-up, part sketch show and part exploration of the unrecognised versatility of the harp in an hour that veers from the conventional to the chaotic. And back again.
Review
“Scarlett Smith is an electroacoustic harpist and comedian”, according to the blurb on the flyer she pressed into my hand earlier this Fringe. That sounded like a classic oxymoron to me but I’m always up for a challenge so I’d no objections when she offered me a press ticket.
It seems that Smith is bored with the harp’s demure, classical reputation. And the fact that it’s nearly always parked at the rear end of an orchestra, being played by a woman. Any Objections? her debut show as well as marking her first foray into the Fringe, is an eclectic piece of, well, performance art I guess, something that defies any form of stereotyping or stuffing into a convenient pigeonhole. Which is precisely what she intended, I assume.
Clad in a boiler suite covered in space motifs, Smith has an engaging persona as she takes the audience, wedged into every nook and cranny of this C Aquila first floor space, on a twisty turning, absurdist, surreal journey to prove that what is a physically rather unwieldy, celestial instrument deserves more than life at the back of the orchestra pit.
The show is part stand-up, part sketches and part music, with a nice balance to the latter, mixing snatches of classical, acoustic harp with looping covers of pop songs, a few original indie style pop jingles and a beautiful final number where both music and lyrics made you stop and think.
Given that Smith makes a half-decent living from playing at weddings, we get plenty of musing on this front, her particular concern being that she doesn’t get many repeat customers. So far, so conventional on the humour front. But pretty soon you’ll be turning up your “suspension of disbelief’o’meter” as chaos meets creativity with looped music to celebrate a fateful boat trip and our very own, “everyone get involved”, game show where we had to guess what object made the glissando.
Conventional it ain’t, but the innocent silliness endemic in this sixty minute piece is refreshing. Whilst the odd bit fell a bit flat or missed its target, that’s to be expected in a show that’s pushing the boundaries, as this one does.
Smith is clearly an accomplished harpist and no mean singer/dancer to boot. She’s imbued with a playful silliness, child like energy and the ability to cope with almost anything that performing live throws at her. Think Duracell Bunny on speed and you’ll have an idea of what she’s like on stage.
And she worked her proverbial socks off to keep her audience engaged during the stand-up parts of her act, dealing with the occasional quizzical looks of both old and young alike when a punchline bombed, before moving swiftly on. She’s clearly following that theatrical maxim – start strong, finish strong and it won’t matter if there’s the odd soggy bit in the middle.
This is a good show with lots of potential for future development. Tighten up some of the segues, make the central theme a bit stronger, chuck in a bit more of the music and you’ll have something that could really fly. Any objections? Not from me.
