Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, The George pub, London, review The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment has always aimed to show old music as it truly was. And what better way to do that than take old music out of the concert hall and back to where it all started - in a room full of foaming beer jugs. The OAE is presenting five pub gigs as part of its mould-breaking Night Shift series, the first of which took place at the George in Stepney. In the 17th century, your average "music-house" concert was a bit shambolic. A "hearty sweat" soon built up, we're told, and the music was "all disjointed and incoherent while ye masters were shuffling in and out." They weren't decorous either. The chaplain in Congreve's Way of the World warned against "prophane Musick-meetings, where the lewd trebles Squeek nothing but Bawdy, and the Basses roar Blasphemy." Well, there was an enjoyably warm fug down at the George, though thankfully not as fruity as a 17th-century one. There was no shuffling in and out, and no trebles squeaking blasphemy. The music in the first of the two sets (the only one I heard, unfortunately) was by Henry Purcell, who, as compere John Jacob reminded us, died when his wife locked him out of the house after a night on the tiles. We heard some of his best-known chamber pieces, played by violinists Matthew Truscott and Maggie Faultless, and cellist Robin Michael. The musical component of the evening was the straightforward bit. Without the ballast of a harpsichord, the fabric of Purcell's music is gossamer-thin, but these players moulded it so gracefully that it took on a different kind of strength. In the dimly lit warmth, the music held everyone captive . One had to marvel at how so rough an era, when death and injury at entertainments were not unknown, could produce something so tender. Not so straightforward was the banter between compere and players, which at first felt forced in its jollity. But eventually the players found the way to tell us helpful things about the music without seeming to lecture. Finally, we all got to "roar some Bawdy," when Matthew Truscott taught us one of Purcell's rude songs. It was as if a breath of Old England had suddenly wafted into a corner of Stepney. Tour details: www.oae.co.uk/thenightshift