Forge
★★★★☆ Songs of resistance
Scottish Storytelling Centre (Venue 30): Fri 7 – Sat 29 Aug 2026.
Review by Sarah Barnard
Brite Theatre and Tom Oakes take a quietly defiant stand with Forge at the Scottish Storytelling Centre, a protest in music, sound and speech.
Oakes wants to know the audience is comfortable. “Are we all keeping cool?” he asks halfway through the set. Cocooned in black fabric to shut out the light and sound of the Fringe outside, the experience is akin to being inside a rather roomy tent, with your multi-instrumentalist new friend. Cosy, but comfortably so.
With this unassuming style belying his virtuosic talent, Oakes weaves together traditional music, new compositions and sound recordings into a tapestry of living story, drawing the audience into the tradition. Threaded throughout are themes of family, migration and displacement.
Tom Oakes. Pic Sel Maclean
Many of the songs were written over the last six years, as birthday gifts for his daughter. He hastens to add that she gets other presents, too.
Music as marker in time, and music as memory are poignantly invoked. Among the samples is Caroline Hughes, the ‘Queen of the Gypsies’, singing Sheep-Crook and Black Dog, a reminder of the way so many stories were collected across generations.
By recalling the songs, we remember the singers. Oakes tells the story of his great-great-grandfather, who emigrated from Ireland to Leeds during the Famine, and plays If Any of Those Children of Hunger Shall Cry, collected by Patrick Weston Joyce.
resistance
He reads from writer Mohammed Al-Bardawili’s zine – available from the Palestine Museum Scotland – and accompanies the reading with a rendition of the Palestinian folk song O my song of longing. This is resistance, not frozen in a recording, but retold and reinforced in the retelling.
Both thought-provoking and toe-tapping, this show deserves – and hopefully will find – a large and understanding audience. And, although Oakes draws on traditions from all over the UK and beyond, there is something undeniably special about an Edinburgh Fringe show featuring an ode to Starbank Park.
Running time: One hour (no interval).
Scottish Storytelling Centre (George Mackay Brown Library), 43-45 High St, EH1 1SR (Venue 30).
Friday 7 – Saturday 29 August 2026.
Daily (except odd dates: Tue 11 – Thu 27): 8pm.
Tickets and details: Book here at EdFringe.com.
Tickets direct from venue: Book here.
Tom Oakes website: www.tomoakesmusic.com
Facebook: @tomoakesmusic
Instagram: @tomoakesmusic
ENDS
