My Name is Gideon: Songs, Space Travel and Everything In-Between

Remember Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins? The one-man band, tambourines strapped to his legs? Gideon Irving is like a cooler, modern-day equivalent. He plays his variety show in people’s living rooms across the world, travelling by bike with a box of instruments dragged along in a trailer behind him. For this version at the Pleasance, Irving recreates that personal living room vibe: it’s intimate and close, warm and cosy. He even bakes us cookies.

Sitting amid his kit, Irving conjures a sense of gentle showmanship scaled down to a charming, lo-fi level as he tells stories and sings. There are a couple of magic tricks, a few simple visual gags. But it’s the songs that make this show. 

He whips out a succession of unusual instruments – including a fluffy slipper with bells strapped to it. With those instruments he creates beautiful, unusual textures and timbres, unlike anything you’ll have heard. The songs freewheel with rambling melodies and poetic lyrics, ranging in subject matter from friendship to lost love to being a teenager. He even duets with his brother Isaac, who happens to be a sea snail.

His music is a bit Andrew Bird, a bit Sufjan Stevens. When he starts to play, with squinting eyes, furrowed brow and pouting lips, you can see the soul being summoned with each song.

Irving is an easy man to like, an endlessly interesting raconteur and a talented multi-instrumentalist. The show would be a delight in any living room; it’s certainly a delight here.