SOME 10,000 tickets sold. One DVD, with artwork completed and... [Derived headline]

SOME 10,000 tickets sold. One DVD, with artwork completed andrelease date confirmed, waiting to be filmed. The pressure was onClydebank's comedy boy wonder to deliver on the stratospheric riseto fame that saw him propelled to join Jonathan Ross's cosy sofachat, screened on the same night he took to Hall 4's stage tocomplete his first UK tour.

From the Tony Soprano-esque city cruising film sequence opener tostriding out against the backdrop of his name in 15ft lights, thesharp-suited 23-year-old, "built like a darts prodigy" only "notdocumentary fat", managed to balance adept timing and confidentdelivery with the same likeable, diamond-in-the-rough shtick that'smade him an internet video sensation.

The subject matter isn't rocket science: his crass, schoolboyhumour advocates screening of porn on terrestrial TV to eradicateanti-social behaviour, reminiscences about family holidays,questions why no Easterhouse Red Sox when home to so many baseballbats. He imagines "jakes on a train" unseated by al Qaeda stink-bombers and marvels at how Topman employees exhibit the enthusiasmof "someone who has never been punched in the face".

Then, every so often, some nuggets of brilliance: he fightsagainst a "vowel gun" fired by drunken hecklers, examines the socialhierarchy represented by the Farmfoods bag, and ponders whether Godregrets leaving an "empty" on Earth. "The Pope," he tells us, "knowshe's getting grounded."

Stand-up on that scale can't be subtle, with eyes drawn upwardsto three large screens, unless, of course, you're in the first fiverows. But it's a mark of how far Bridges has come since startingaged 17 that he manages to fill the space with an exaggeratedgesticulatory performance from his new-found experience of playinglarger concert halls.

The 80-minute set ended with two standing ovations and a DVD inthe can. In darts parlance, a double top.

Emma Kirkby/Marcia Hadjimarkos

St Cecilia's Hall, Edinburgh

Conrad Wilson

HHH

Three decades after she first appeared there, Edinburgh's ovalrecital room still seemed the ideal setting for Emma Kirkby's soft-grained soprano voice, even if, in this artfully compiled SypertSummer Concert, she was no longer in her first youth. Yet, whilesinging two of Mozart's feathery French chansons at the start of theprogramme, she looked and sounded as bird-like as ever, theplaintive words delicately articulated, the fortepiano accompanimentperfectly gauged to her tone.

The first half of the evening showed clearly what she can stilloffer: sweet tenderness in Haydn's drawing-room ditties, drama neveroverstressed in the same composer's cantata Arianna a Naxos, fineinterplay of speech and keyboard tone in her accompanist's ownedition of Dussek's Sufferings of the Queen of France and thesucceeding Marie-Antoinette song. These formed memorable Kirkbyterritory.

It was only later, in the short Schubertiad serving as theprogramme's climax, that cracks began to show. The songs werebeautifully chosen and (theoretically) perfect vehicles for Kirkby,with the tiny drama of Gretchen at the Spinning Wheel as high point.But her voice by then was under strain and she did not capture theeerie impressionism of Meeres Stille or the lyricism of To Emma. Thegroping imagery of The Blind Boy, however, was lucidly conveyed bythe fortepiano and the inclusion of Schubert's Hungarian Melody andHaydn's 49th sonata, with all its plunges, pauses and sharp-edgedmodulations, were splendid.

Edinburgh Royal Choral Union/Halifax Choral Society, Usher Hall,Edinburgh

Conrad Wilson

HHH

To merge two distinguished British choirs in a performance ofWidor's Mass for Two Choirs and Two Organs could seem like a homageto the law of diminishing returns. The work is hardly the mostcompelling example of French 19th-century church music, and torevive it now could seem like an opera company deciding it was timeto champion Cesar Franck's Hulda. At the Usher Hall on Sundayafternoon, its effect was that of a dreary trudge through the churchof St Sulpice in Paris, where Widor was organist for 64 years. Ofthe glittering moments of his organ symphonies there was littlehint, even in the organ solo that formed the mass's centrepiece. Thesense of massive sonority, which was what most people must have beenhoping for, was lacking. The music merely went laboriously throughits motions, sounding considerably longer than it actually was.

Happily, it formed only the opening portion of a concert thatimproved as it proceeded. Bruckner's Ave Maria was a model ofsuccinctness, glowingly voiced under Michael Bawtree'sconductorship, and the pastoral beauty of Vaughan Williams's FiveMystical Songs, with Michel de Souza as soloist, was warmly evokedafter a plummy start. But it was Kodaly's Missa Brevis that made theconcert - and the combination of the two choirs - the event itfinally was. Sung with ample attack and colour, with MorleyWhitehead splendidly justifying his contribution as organist andBawtree conducting vivaciously, the music emerged as a gloriouscompanion piece to Kodaly's great Psalmus Hungaricus.

HHH

SOME 10,000 tickets sold. One DVD, with artwork completed and... [Derived headline]

SOME 10,000 tickets sold. One DVD, with artwork completed andrelease date confirmed, waiting to be filmed. The pressure was onClydebank's comedy boy wonder to deliver on the stratospheric riseto fame that saw him propelled to join Jonathan Ross's cosy sofachat, screened on the same night he took to Hall 4's stage tocomplete his first UK tour.

From the Tony Soprano-esque city cruising film sequence opener tostriding out against the backdrop of his name in 15ft lights, thesharp-suited 23-year-old, "built like a darts prodigy" only "notdocumentary fat", managed to balance adept timing and confidentdelivery with the same likeable, diamond-in-the-rough shtick that'smade him an internet video sensation.

The subject matter isn't rocket science: his crass, schoolboyhumour advocates screening of porn on terrestrial TV to eradicateanti-social behaviour, reminiscences about family holidays,questions why no Easterhouse Red Sox when home to so many baseballbats. He imagines "jakes on a train" unseated by al Qaeda stink-bombers and marvels at how Topman employees exhibit the enthusiasmof "someone who has never been punched in the face".

Then, every so often, some nuggets of brilliance: he fightsagainst a "vowel gun" fired by drunken hecklers, examines the socialhierarchy represented by the Farmfoods bag, and ponders whether Godregrets leaving an "empty" on Earth. "The Pope," he tells us, "knowshe's getting grounded."

Stand-up on that scale can't be subtle, with eyes drawn upwardsto three large screens, unless, of course, you're in the first fiverows. But it's a mark of how far Bridges has come since startingaged 17 that he manages to fill the space with an exaggeratedgesticulatory performance from his new-found experience of playinglarger concert halls.

The 80-minute set ended with two standing ovations and a DVD inthe can. In darts parlance, a double top.

Emma Kirkby/Marcia Hadjimarkos

St Cecilia's Hall, Edinburgh

Conrad Wilson

HHH

Three decades after she first appeared there, Edinburgh's ovalrecital room still seemed the ideal setting for Emma Kirkby's soft-grained soprano voice, even if, in this artfully compiled SypertSummer Concert, she was no longer in her first youth. Yet, whilesinging two of Mozart's feathery French chansons at the start of theprogramme, she looked and sounded as bird-like as ever, theplaintive words delicately articulated, the fortepiano accompanimentperfectly gauged to her tone.

The first half of the evening showed clearly what she can stilloffer: sweet tenderness in Haydn's drawing-room ditties, drama neveroverstressed in the same composer's cantata Arianna a Naxos, fineinterplay of speech and keyboard tone in her accompanist's ownedition of Dussek's Sufferings of the Queen of France and thesucceeding Marie-Antoinette song. These formed memorable Kirkbyterritory.

It was only later, in the short Schubertiad serving as theprogramme's climax, that cracks began to show. The songs werebeautifully chosen and (theoretically) perfect vehicles for Kirkby,with the tiny drama of Gretchen at the Spinning Wheel as high point.But her voice by then was under strain and she did not capture theeerie impressionism of Meeres Stille or the lyricism of To Emma. Thegroping imagery of The Blind Boy, however, was lucidly conveyed bythe fortepiano and the inclusion of Schubert's Hungarian Melody andHaydn's 49th sonata, with all its plunges, pauses and sharp-edgedmodulations, were splendid.

Edinburgh Royal Choral Union/Halifax Choral Society, Usher Hall,Edinburgh

Conrad Wilson

HHH

To merge two distinguished British choirs in a performance ofWidor's Mass for Two Choirs and Two Organs could seem like a homageto the law of diminishing returns. The work is hardly the mostcompelling example of French 19th-century church music, and torevive it now could seem like an opera company deciding it was timeto champion Cesar Franck's Hulda. At the Usher Hall on Sundayafternoon, its effect was that of a dreary trudge through the churchof St Sulpice in Paris, where Widor was organist for 64 years. Ofthe glittering moments of his organ symphonies there was littlehint, even in the organ solo that formed the mass's centrepiece. Thesense of massive sonority, which was what most people must have beenhoping for, was lacking. The music merely went laboriously throughits motions, sounding considerably longer than it actually was.

Happily, it formed only the opening portion of a concert thatimproved as it proceeded. Bruckner's Ave Maria was a model ofsuccinctness, glowingly voiced under Michael Bawtree'sconductorship, and the pastoral beauty of Vaughan Williams's FiveMystical Songs, with Michel de Souza as soloist, was warmly evokedafter a plummy start. But it was Kodaly's Missa Brevis that made theconcert - and the combination of the two choirs - the event itfinally was. Sung with ample attack and colour, with MorleyWhitehead splendidly justifying his contribution as organist andBawtree conducting vivaciously, the music emerged as a gloriouscompanion piece to Kodaly's great Psalmus Hungaricus.

HHH