There is something rather lovely about a show that gets inside the music without actually playing the music. Strange Face is essentially a PowerPoint presentation, but behind those slides lies an extraordinary little odyssey involving lost recordings, chance encounters, headphones, a backpack and a camera.
Our guide is Michael Burdett, a composer, photographer and wonderfully personable storyteller whose connection with Drake began while working as a post-boy at Island Records in the 1970s. Asked to dispose of some tapes, he rescued one marked Nick Drake, Cello Song, only discovering more than two decades later that it contained a previously unheard recording.
From that extraordinary accident grew something of a Munro-bagger obsession. Headphones, backpack and camera in hand, Burdett travelled around the British Isles, ticking off locations, allowing complete strangers to listen to the lost recording and photographing their faces as they heard it.
It is the circumstantial coincidences and connections within this journey that give the hour its considerable charm. One encounter leads unexpectedly to another, including a meeting with Paul de Rivaz, who had known Drake at Cambridge and possessed another recording. Gradually, what might simply have been the story of finding some lost music becomes something much more human.
More importantly, Burdett has become part of the story himself. His discoveries ultimately contributed to the wider preservation and release of Drake material. He is therefore not merely documenting Drake’s legacy but adding to it. There is something beautiful about that idea of a living legacy, music travelling through time and then being physically carried around the country to find a new audience.
Certainly, this is one for Nick Drake fans, but perhaps more interestingly it provides a way in for those who know little about him. I have dipped into the back catalogue myself since seeing the show and can attest that this is rather beautiful music, with its own distinctive feel and texture.
Strange Face is sweet rather than extraordinary, and its theatrical ambitions are modest, but it opens a door. You leave wanting to discover the music that Burdett has spent an hour talking about without actually letting you hear.
And sometimes sending an audience away wanting to listen is quite enough.
Reviewer: Greg Holstead
Reviewed: 15th August 2026
North West End UK / Theatre Muse UK Rating:
Running time – 1hr
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