This show’s premise is simple enough: there’s a lad called Ryan who plays the accordion and does a mean line in pop bangers. And, apart from a bunch of audience participation, a couple of props, some dancing and the history of Australian pop in seven minutes, that’s it.
Yet it’s brilliant: this show is somehow, joyfully, much more than the sum of its parts. In large part, that’s because Ryan Simpson is such a safe pair of hands: there’s something about the words ‘I used to be a busker’ that tells the audience that here is someone who knows how to do the thing. He makes it look easy and, despite the accordion’s inherent comedy value (you’ll laugh every time he mentions it in the first ten minutes and, given it’s an accordion show, that’s quite a lot), there’s real musicianship on display. That, and the way he tears round The Lab giving us his WAP.
This is a feel-good, bring your mates and have a brilliant night kind of a show; that’s by no means a put-down in a world where the good times are few and far between. In fact, Accordion Ryan bangs.