Review: Tasmin Sarkany – Now That’s What I Call Bach!, Fringe 2026

Have you truly experienced the Edinburgh Festival Fringe if you have not sheltered from a sudden Scottish downpour inside a converted shipping container while a classical musician stages an operatic claymation infidelity scene? Tasmin Sarkany brings her debut solo comedy hour, Now That’s What I Call Bach!, to Wee Container 1 at Hoots @ Potterrow this August. Running daily at 12:35 until 31 August (excluding 19 August), this inventive lunchtime show pairs virtuosic violin playing with delightfully absurd character comedy.

Sarkany performs as Amelia Crotchet, a delightfully prim, disgraced classical violinist recently dismissed from the London Philharmonic Orchestra. Staging a high-stakes comeback concert to perform Bach’s notoriously intricate Chaconne, Amelia is quickly derailed by her duet partner: her sentient, talking violin. What unfolds is a surreal domestic saga revealing that Amelia and her instrument matched on Tinder, married, and are currently expecting a child, complete with overbearing cello in-laws and pitch-perfect musical digressions.

Virtuosity, Seagulls, and Pingu Opera

The show thrives on Sarkany’s extraordinary technical musicianship, using her instrument to deliver razor-sharp punchlines and uncanny sound effects. Playing since age four and trained at the Royal College of Music’s Junior Department, she makes difficult violin work look effortless. One moment she mimics the screech of a seaside gull or a blaring ambulance siren on the strings; the next, she delivers a full operatic drama about Pingu caught in an adulterous affair.

Amelia speaks in a crisp, frightfully polite RP accent that contrasts brilliantly with the unhinged reality of her musical marriage. Even if you cannot tell a diminished seventh from a dominant fifth (I certainly cannot!), the comedy lands cleanly. Sarkany sprinkles clever musical theory gags alongside broader, accessible slapstick, ensuring that classical music novices and conservatory graduates alike find plenty to laugh about.

Container Cabaret and Fringe Spirit

The performance space at Hoots @ Potterrow is a metal shipping container with flat floor seating. Shorter audience members in the back rows might occasionally struggle to see ground-level visual gags, but because the show relies almost entirely on auditory brilliance and spoken narrative, the venue’s physical limitations never hold it back.

The hour flies by at an electric pace, leaving little room for dead air (except the break you don’t get in the middle). While classical purists expecting an hour of unadulterated J.S. Bach might find the composer taking a back seat to matrimonial bickering and pitches for A Muppet Godfather, this is pure alternative musical comedy at its most playful and inventive.

Overall

Tasmin Sarkany’s Now That’s What I Call Bach! is a masterclass in musical silliness that perfectly captures the creative heart of the Edinburgh Fringe. With formidable violin skills and top-tier character work, Sarkany proves herself to be one of the most exciting new comedic voices on the circuit.