Brighton Fringe
Venue: Miracle Theatre’s Fleapit Tent in the One Church, Brighton
Website: https://www.hedluvandpassman.com
Some songs they performed:
Doin’ it Dreckly
The Future (The Sat Nav song)
Made In Cornwall
Weird Nature
Do You Want Jam With That
Opening with their song Doin’ it Dreckly, Hedluv and Passman (the Cornish Rappers) set the scene for an hour of Surrealism and Rap – not two artforms you would naturally think of co-existing.
The spirit of ‘Dreckly’ is the key to their performance – getting wherever they are going, at their own gentle pace. There’s a lot to be enjoyed if you’re not in too much of a hurry.
They combine tight rap lyrics and rhythms with hooky melodies in songs that reflect the Cornish way of life and, importantly, the Cornish pace of life. The songs and performances are insanely hooky and they achieved the near-impossible trick of getting all of their audience up and line-dancing to The SatNav Song.
Passman brings a Freddie Mercury like bravado to his performance, combining almost athletic strength with the flailings of a gauche teenager dancing. He has an almost alarming vocal range and plays guitar well enough to be able to pull off a wonderfully ‘bad’ guitar solo.
Although Hedluv’s performance is less flamboyant, he is far from being the ‘quiet one’ in the duo, stepping out from behind the keyboards at every opportunity and often leading the rap. As well as being a good player, he has a knack for exploiting the often cheesy built-in rhythms of their trademark Casio keyboards to great musical and comic effect.
Their YouTube videos do not really do them justice – it is their performance and interaction with the audience that makes them so special. This is highly skilled comedy, and there are masters of their art. Initially they reminded me of the Sleaford Mods, as their act is clever, amusing and well informed, and does not fall into the ‘delivery of gags’ pattern that we are so used to from stand-up comedians.
In between songs, their gentle humour carried us along – it was just a joy to be in their company. We smiled and laughed all the through.
Hedluv and Passman are gloriously pointless, and for me, were one of the unexpected, must-see highlights of the Brighton Fringe.
5*****
Sue Bradley