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The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain

The Ukulele Orchestra Of Great Britain
Lowry
March 28, 2010

There's a good old English tradition – think Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band – of doing something ridiculous with an exaggerated air of propriety.

Booted and suited like members of the philharmonic while throwing all their artistic energies into something not much bigger than their shoe, the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain fits nicely in that comic tradition.

It's not that the ukulele is, in itself, ridiculous. It's all in our own preconceptions. Weaned as we are on that icon of rock 'n' roll, the guitar, the uke looks like something that has shrunk in the wash. That, plus its cheeky, tinkly tones, means the uke always makes us smile.

A little dry, self-deprecating humour from the orchestra turns those smiles into laughter. Add some rib-ticklingly clever arrangements and you have what Salford bard Howard Jacobson once described as “pound for pound... the best musical entertainment in the country”.

To most of us, the joke is of recent origin: a uke version of Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit on Jools Holland's Hootenanny in 2003 shot the eight-strong orchestra to fame. But there were many years of unsung endeavour before that, making this their silver jubilee tour.

A lot of the crowd-pleasers were there. Wuthering Heights was mangled into cheesy swing beat, with one verse in broad Yorkshire dialect and the addition of the sheep noises Kate Bush so unwisely omitted from the original.

Bowie's Life On Mars was dovetailed with My Way, For Once In My life, Born Free, Substitute and others, demonstrating very imaginative arranging not just of ukes but voices. Sympathy For The Devil was mangled with If I Were A Carpenter, and Anarchy In The UK was reimagined as a cowboy campfire singalong.

Along the way, we saw grown men attacking soprano ukes with a Pete Townshend-style windmill strum, some ukulele head-banging and an unfeasibly tiny uke – brought on stage aboard a remote-controlled car - not just played, but played with gusto.

All of which may lull you into the idea that the UOGB are just a novelty act. They're not. Musical director George Hinchliffe, who does not just dish out the best gags but also takes the lion's share of the lead lines, is the uke equivalent of an axe hero.

And the orchestra is not always playing for laughs. There were moments of genuine musical beauty: a sonorous reading of Return To Sorrento, an affecting version of Tom Waits' Shiver Me Timbers and , best of all, a lovely cover of Gnarls Barkley's Crazy.

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