Review: 21 – The Music of Adele, Fringe 2024

I’m a fan of Night Owl Shows because they combine live performances, nostalgia, and an entertaining way to learn all the stuff I should already know about the megabands of yore.

Clearly, The Music of Adele is already an exception. It breaks the template. Adele is (one of?) the biggest artists active right now. I bet Swifties would challenge me and they’re probably right but Adele’s album sales are record-breaking.

As there’s less need to explore Adele’s past—and less past as she’s so young—we get more music. 

Tonight’s show sold out, the audience was more grey-haired than I suspected (but it was a 2-for-1 night), and the energy in the room was great. There was a demand for an encore. “Just one more!” someone shouted, and fortunately, the schedule had allowed for just that.

Tone

There’s a positivity about “21: The Music of Adele” that I didn’t expect. No doubt I came with the breakup ballards in my head, but Night Owl does not let those dominate the show.

In fact, as singer Ella McCready points out, Adele has released whole albums that focus on the make-up rather than the breakup.

Sometimes Night Owl have little video shorts in a documentary style to play on the screen over the band. For “21: The Music of Adele” that screen is used for an introduction and, wonderfully, to play the singer’s favourite introduction to her smash hit “Hello”. This is a multimedia show.

The combination of an audience ready and expecting a good time, the energy of the introduction, the multimedia and, of course, the impact of the music combine positively. 

If you’re feeling down, you can spend an hour watching this show and leave feeling better.

What to expect

“21” is one of Adele’s albums, not even the most recent. However, Night Owl goes back to “19” and forward to “30” for the evening’s samples.

I think the show’s sampling of Adele songs is well chosen, and we get a fair range. The selected songs, which will surely include a favourite, also go well together and allow for some back-to-back singing.

Once again, caught up in enjoying the performance, I forgot to count how many songs we had, but it’s around eight. We get the whole song, too, and not a Top of the Pops-style middle trim.

Expect the audience to clap along and for Ella to encourage it. At the end of the show, there’s a high chance you’ll be encouraged to your feet and to clap along to the last song. As someone with an invisible mobility disability, I always find that awkward and uncomfortable (physically and mentally), but those concerns were, tonight at least, diminished to tolerable thanks to the combination of Night Owl’s charisma and audience vibe.

Overall

“21: The Music of Adele” covers more than just the album 21. Singer Ella McCready sings with gusto, ably supported by the Night Owl band, and takes the audience on a tour of some of Adele’s best songs.

The chances are that I’ll never be rich enough to go see Adele live in Vegas but at least I’ve had this experience.

I recommend “21: The Music of Adele” to anyone who likes the music. In particular, this is a great cross-generational show. Take your grandparents. Take your kids. Go somewhere nice for dinner afterwards.