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Nick Morgan and crew
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Concert
Review by Nick Morgan |
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THE UKULELE ORCHESTRA OF GREAT BRITAIN
Toynbee Studios, Whitechapel, London, December 15th,
2007 |
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I
know it’s Christmas. In the corner of the
proudly world famous Lahore
Kebab House there’s a token Christmas
tree, decorated as an after thought, incongruous
among the brightly lit shiny table tops and Bollywood
soundtracks blasting from the huge flat screens
on the walls. |
| It
turns out the Photographer was last here in 1985
– the Cool Dudes who are with us for the evening
haven’t been for about five years. And my
how it’s changed – “We’ve
got three floors innit” says our waiter. But
the very high quality canteen Pakistani food (the
lamb chops are legendary) lives up to its very high
reputation. We’re just off the Commercial
Road in the East End – this is real Jack the
Ripper and Oswald Mosley territory. Five minutes
away in Commercial Street is Toynbee Hall, a surprising
muddle of neo-Gothic Victorian buildings with later
additions. It was built in 1884 as the first ‘settlement’,
those houses where brave middle-class social explorers
(like Arnold Toynbee, after whom it was named) lived
in the midst of urban industrial poverty (where
we are was an impoverished Jewish and Irish ghetto
in the nineteenth century, where famously even Thomas
Cook could not organise a tour) in order to do ‘good
works’ in the community. And we’re heading
for the small theatre in the newly-named Toynbee
Studios, which was built in 1938 and designed by
Alistair MacDonald (son of first Labour Prime Minister,
the biscuit loving Ramsay MacDonald) who made a
living from designing cinemas, and it shows. But
it’s a lovely little space, which thanks to
us is aromatically reminiscent of Lahore. |
| It’s
the Ukulele
Orchestra of Great Britain’s
Christmas show, and a suitably eclectic audience,
of very at-home old fashioned Labour P, corduroy
jackets with elbow patches and all that, Boden
families (impeccably-behaved children, Woodcraft
folk I’ve no doubt), a few stray arty
types, a National Childbirth Trust reunion night
out, and behind us an irritatingly loud party from
Kent, who quite clearly don’t get out much.
On stage are the seven piece UOoGB – led by
George Hinchcliffe and Kitty Lux. You possibly recall
we saw them at the Cropredy Festival a few years
ago – and what good fun they were. But in
an intimate space such as this the first thing that
strikes you (after the boorish braying of the men
of Kent to our rear) is not the wittiness of the
jokes and musical references, but rather the complexity
of the arrangements and the outstanding playing
of the entire group. I’m particularly struck
by the whistling Jonty Bankes, who is playing the
bass ukulele (it looks suspiciously like an acoustic
bass guitar but best not to mention that) with great
aplomb and subtlety. As it should be it’s
at the heart of everything – and sometimes
very much at the front, as with the inspired rendition
of ‘Psycho Killer’, sung with hysterical
enthusiasm by Will Grove-White. |
 |
There
is a festive touch – the first tune is ‘Sleigh
Ride’, followed by – in homage to Peter
Brooke-Turner’s shiny dobro- style ukulele
– Hawkwind’s ‘Silver Machine’.
Brooke-Turner, who, by the way, has an interesting
alter-ego Tony
Penultimate, adds vocals on songs such as ‘Yes
Sir, I can boogie’ and ‘Shaft’.
Yes – if you haven’t got it by now that’s
the joke – ukuleles play rock classics, ranging
from a Simon and Garfunkel style ‘Anarchy
in the UK’, Splodgenessabounds’
brilliant situationalist punk classic ‘Two
pints of lager and a packet of crisps please’,
Lou Reed’s ‘Satellite’ and even
Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin’s ‘Je
t'aime... moi non plus’. |
|
They finish the first half of the evening with a
very clever version of ‘Sympathy for the Devil’
which ends up with each member of the Orchestra
playing and singing at least one different song,
including ‘If I was a Carpenter’, ‘Hey
Jude’, ‘Save the last dance for me’,
‘You sexy thing’, ‘I’m waiting
for my man’ and David Bowie’s ‘Heroes’.
But this was as nothing to the tour de force with
which they ended the show, that “folk-song”
from “The People’s Republic of South
Yorkshire”, Kate Bush’s ‘Wuthering
Heights’ sung wonderfully by Hinchcliffe in
a jazz style. As I observed previously, it’s
just what the sometimes achingly pretentious Ms
Bush deserves. And just to remind us that it was
Christmas they rounded things off with more meticulously
arranged Christmas tunes. So with not a snow-ball
throwing urchin in sight, we walked back through
the frosty streets of East London to the car which
was glowing in the warmth of a packed Kebab House.
We nearly went in for seconds.- Nick Morgan
(photographs by Kate) |
Check
the index of all reviews:
Nick's Concert Reviews
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