Gregory Charles: Musicman

Billed as a human jukebox, Gregory Charles doesn’t eat two pound coins and turn out only to know the panpipe version of ‘Billie Jean’. Rather the Quebecois fronts what may be the world’s best pub band with something of the pub quizmaster thrown in as well. “Pick a year, any year”, he goads the audience and then proceeds to play a medley of the five or so biggest chart hits of that year with his highly skilled band.

But there's more to come: for Charles’ best trick he trawls at random through a ballot box of audience requests and plays whatever the song with disturbing familiarity, communicating so scantily with his three bandmates they seem merely extensions of his trivia-crammed mind.

It must be tiresome to gain such sober virtuosity in an instrument that you'll willingly wing-it to the precarious cadences of your tipsy punters’ favourite songs, but Charles remains eminently charismatic. For all its pubbish premise Musicman has stadium polish and appeal. Unsurprisingly the multi-instrumentalist Charles is a minor celebrity in the Francophone world with a brace of albums, tours and television gigs. 

He thrills the punters in Pleasance to the point that some of those shuffling out at the end mutter suspiciously, picking holes in his method as if he’s a magician. Well, he is one. Musicman pulls nostalgia, good cheer and a brilliant spontaneous blues version of Van Halen’s ‘Jump’ from its box of tricks. All it lacks is a dance floor.