Steve Pretty on The Origin of the Pieces

"I used to be a real musician. I played Ronnie Scott’s once," pleads fresh-faced jazz aficionado Steve Pretty towards the end of this anarchic, fast-paced romp through 40,000 years of popular music. "And look what pop has done to me!" he sighs before breaking into a one-man version of ‘Deeply Dippy’, Right Said Fred’s, er, seminal early 90s hit – rendered on a kid’s electric guitar with the aid of a keyboard gaffer-taped to his leg.

A show tracing the evolution of pop music from primitive man’s bone flutes right up to N-Trance’s cover of the Bee Gees’ ‘Stayin’ Alive’ is certainly on the implausible end of the unlikely triumph spectrum. But affable Fringe debutante Pretty wins over the (admittedly meagre) afternoon crowd with his eclectic mix of fun facts, sharply observed one-liners and audience participation.

Inspired by Charles Darwin—the clue’s in the title—Pretty explains how "just as man evolved from monkeys, Men at Work evolved from the Monkees", Stephen Foster bequeathed the football chant and rap music is really a contemporary take on primitive call and response. Adopting a light, breezy tone, the classically trained trumpet player goes from 12-bar blues and the invention of the phonograph to ‘Mary Had A Little Lamb’ with barely a pause for breath.

Occasionally Pretty flies a little too close to fellow Englishman Bill Bailey’s self-consciously quirky brand of musical comedy—the Dr Who theme? Again?—and he’s never going to be a non-stop gag merchant. Nevertheless, this is original, intelligent comedy delivered with commendable panache.