Strange Face: adventures with a lost Nick Drake recording

Television composer Michael Burdett unearthed a never-heard-before Nick Drake recording and told random strangers (and some celebrities) that they could hear it in exchange for his photographing them. Burdett’s Strange Face project resulted in a book of the photographs and also tales regarding how people reacted to the song, their music tastes, personal stories and more. This event was effectively an insight into Burdett’s experiences with Nick Drake’s music and also his work on the project, and featured him telling stories accompanied with images on large screen.

Michael Burdett is a clearly a warm, open person with a passion for people and music which was brilliantly conveyed in his funny storytelling. He had some sharp comic timing and some fun antics with the crowd, and there was a pleasant surprise at the end that I won’t spoil but no, we didn’t get to hear the recording! That wasn’t a problem, but we could have perhaps done with better image presentation on the screen and more creative production ideas in the show to flesh it out as its own entity, rather than coming across as a nice teaser to buy the book.

The Old Market, 2 June 2016
Rating:
Joe Fuller