Tomatoes Tried to Kill Me but Banjos Saved My Life ★★★★★

The lengthy but intriguing title should go some way to preparing audiences for what they are about to experience and yet what unfolds is an unmitigated delight that couldn’t be imagined. Keith Alessi is a banjo player from Meadows of Dan in Virginia and he has a story to tell.

In the first place, this is a master class in story telling – alluding briefly to the godfather of stories, Billy Connolly, appropriate because of their instrument kinship, the vivid imagery he conjures also makes him a worthy disciple. Keith Alessi is the son of Italian immigrants whose family bears little resemblance to vibrant, happy ones of the screen. His more troubled background gave him determination and an independent spirit which has led him to huge success as an entrepreneur, company CEO and university lecturer, with a desire to play banjo always lurking in the background – or more specifically in his closet. And so it is a cancer diagnosis which leads him to unleash this musical spirit and has brought him and audiences the greatest happiness of his life.

This is an hour of pure joy: with an incredible lightness of touch, director Erika Conway has enabled Alessi to tell his story as if for the first time – despite this being his fourth year at the Fringe. His musicianship, by his own admission, doesn’t put him amongst the greatest of players, but the warmth of his engagement and the love with which he explains how he learned to feel the music and how it surrounded him with love when he was at his lowest ebb, elevates those humble tunes, to a higher plane. His penchant for self-deprecation leads to some brilliant one-liners – ‘What do you call an attractive woman on the arm of a banjo player? A tattoo!’

Donating all the proceeds of his show to support cancer charities and the arts – in this case Summerhall itself – an hour in his company cloaks the audience in the most generous of spirits.