Edinburgh Fringe 2025
Daniel Cainer: Topical
Daniel Cainer
Genre: Cabaret, Music, Musical Stories, Musical Theatre, Storytelling
Venue: Underbelly, George Square
Festival: Edinburgh Fringe
Low Down
In Topical, Daniel Cainer takes audiences on a journey through politics, personal history, grief, and humor, all set to his own original songs on keyboard (with one exception!). His warm presence and gentle voice create an inviting atmosphere where listeners feel safe, seen, and entertained. The result is an intimate and quietly rewarding experience.
Review
Before I start, a disclaimer: I am not a musician. I can write about the feeling in the room, the atmosphere, and the storytelling, but for the technical side of things, I asked my brother, Steven, a graduate of Berklee College of Music, to weigh in. What follows is a kind of sibling collaboration: I was in the room, he was not. I’ll focus on the audience experience, while weaving in his observations on the music and lyrics.
After a short stroll through the astroturf and dodging small children attempting to throw rings larger than themselves, we found ourselves in a tucked away tent- The Wee Coo at Underbelly, George Square. Inside: an intimate black box space, with a YARMULKE keyboard, a tip of the hat to what we were walking into.
Daniel Cainer has a very gentle, kind presence. From the moment he greeted us, I felt like I was in safe hands. He plays keyboard, with a projector behind him that occasionally provides a visual cue or theme for the next song: politics and religion, health and safety, sex, death and taxes. The show’s name and theme, Topical, is used loosely; Cainer himself admitted the label was chosen months in advance, and in practice the songs are “topical” to him, not always to the day’s headlines. If you take it that way- as a guided tour through what’s most alive in his world right now- the concept holds strong.
Each song felt like entering a small world. Sometimes the lens was political (Don’t Tell Greta), sometimes deeply personal (My Heart and Me), sometimes nostalgic (Mother’s House), and sometimes playful (Tip the Lady Out of Bed). The through-line is more mosaic than thread, and that quality will land differently depending on who you are. For me, someone at least twenty years younger than Cainer, it often felt more like an intellectual exercise than an emotional one. But for his target demographic, which was everyone else in the room (who seemed closer to his age), the resonance was clear. They leaned forward, attuned, nodding along, at times tearing up. His music made them feel seen, and that speaks volumes.
From a musical standpoint, my brother noted that the songs are structurally solid. The melodies support the stories; the chord progressions are steady. The themes and messages are strong, and yet, there’s opportunity for them to be even more evocative. Cainer often tells us what he thinks- but what if he let the imagery do more of the work? What if he held back, just a little, to leave space for the listener’s imagination to fill in the rest? That could deepen the experience.
That said, there are numbers where everything clicks. My Heart and Me, about facing his own mortality, was especially poignant. The sterile hospital imagery landed with weight, and the vulnerability felt raw but never indulgent. Mother’s House, written after his mother’s passing, carried deep emotional potential; and while some of the details could be tightened, the sentiment was unmistakable. On the lighter side, Tip the Lady Out of Bed brought comic relief, though its pacing meandered before the hook arrived. Still, the audience seemed to enjoy the playful change of tone.
What Cainer offers, above all, is a kind of companionable presence. You don’t feel like you’re watching a slick, polished “show” so much as being welcomed into someone’s living room for an hour of stories, jokes, and reflections set to music. For his audiences, that intimacy is the appeal.
For me, Topical is a Hidden Gem because when you come across it, you’ll likely leave feeling cared for, entertained, and gently reminded of the common threads that make us human. And in a festival full of spectacle and noise, there’s something quietly valuable in that.
