Tubular Bells For Two

Answered by: Aidan Roberts

Briefly describe your show. One album, two men, too many instruments... Two multi-instrumentalists Daniel Holdsworth and Aidan Roberts perform the entirety of Mike Oldfield’s 1973 album with just four hands and four feet.

What was the inspiration behind your show? We were just hanging out, drinking and listening to records, and we pulled Tubular Bells off the shelf. We suddenly got the crazy idea, ‘Hang on, do you want to try and learn to play this whole thing with just the two of us?’ We really got carried away with the idea and the rest is history…

What makes your show different? It’s not a covers show. It’s really about two things: on the one hand it’s about bringing to life Mike Oldfield’s album the way it was originally played in 1973 in an emotional and engaging performance, but also it’s about two guys with too many instruments to juggle, desperately attempting to achieve the almost-impossible.

Briefly describe the development process of your show? We started to learn the piece just on two guitars, just as a learning exercise more than anything. We always wanted to perform a version of Tubular Bells but we quickly realised that in order to perform it in a dynamic way, we really should include some of the other instruments on the album. As we experimented with loop pedals and other ways of broadening the sound of our performance, we realised that once you start building it, you kind of have to go the whole way. So we brought in everything, including a homemade set of “tubular bells” for the famous finale sequence. Danny and I have different musical strengths and have played in bands a lot together, so we built our arrangement around each other’s skills, multitasking each section and delegating roles until we’d rebuilt it from the ground up. It’s still evolving, every show is different!

What makes a good Fringe show? What do you personally look for from the perspective of an audience member? I think what makes a great Fringe show is having a show that gives the audience something they’ve never seen or heard before, something they wouldn’t expect. As the format tends to be an hour or less, you’ve got to keep them captive for that hour, take them on a journey and give them plenty to discuss over a beer afterwards. That’s what makes the festival atmosphere so exciting; everyone is totally engaged.

What do you love about Fringe Festival besides all the shows? I just love that the Fringe festival provokes ideas. I always tend to go away from the experience of a festival like this with my head swimming with creative thoughts. And you always meet people.

In a fantasy world who would you be the love child of? Feist and Tom Waits.

Website link for more info? tubularbellsfortwo.com