Review: The Bad Shepherds, Pocklington Arts Centre

1:33pm Monday 27th October 2008

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CREATING folk arrangements for punk classics was the inspired idea of comedy star Adrian Edmondson, who found fame playing Vyvyan, the punk rocker, in the cult 1980s TV sitcom The Young Ones.

He formed the Bad Shepherds with two multi-instrumentalists – Maartin Allcock, formerly of Fairport Convention and Jethro Tull, and Troy Donockley, who has worked with Iona, Maddy Prior and Midge Ure.

Their UK premiere at Pocklington on Saturday night was a fun-filled evening of quality music-making spiced with a couple of satirical swipes at the sheep parables of Jesus Christ.

Edmondson proved an able front man. He has a fine singing voice and he’s no slouch on the mandolin. He described his style as “thrash mandolin”, playing with such exuberance that he broke two strings during one number. Ever the professional, he had packed a spare instrument.

The Bad Shepherds, who also featured last-minute recruits on fiddle and percussion, gave fresh vibrancy to seminal sounds of the 1970s and 1980s. Their version of Teenage Kicks morphed into the Irish folk standard Whiskey In The Jar during the instrumental breaks.

Kraftwerk’s electronic epic The Model featured Donockley on the uilleann pipes, while their treatment of The Jam’s Down At The Tube Station At Midnight verged on the poetic.

The five musicians also gave the folk treatment to songs by The Clash, The Sex Pistols, Tom Robinson, Talking Heads and The Stranglers. Their well-deserved encore was a hilarious version of Hurry Up Harry by Sham 69.