Highly Strung?
The brilliance of these ukulele mentalists is made immediately clear through the contrast between their black tie dress and musical absurdity
Hours before this performance, tragedy struck in the heart of Ukeleleland. As a pond-hopping plane filled with visitors crashed into the lagoon of Tahiti's neighboring island Moorea, the normally care free Polynesian lifestyle was served an unfortunate reminder of the perils of modernity. However, as consummate artistes, the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain soldiered on delivering an incredibly uplifting and almost flawless performance of joyful medleys, jovial stage antics and madcap renditions of pop classics.
The septet plays which can only be described as a 28-stringed mashup of modern music. Opening with a quirky venture into Talking Heads' "Psycho Killer", the brilliance of these ukulele mentalists is made immediately clear through the contrast between their black tie dress and musical absurdity. Peppered with tongue in cheek audience banter and merciless use of puns and bad jokes, the set is tied firmly to the ground by their astonishing musical virtuosity.
The evening reaches a technical climax when five of the members jam out on a single ukulele, while the ultimate highlight of the presentation arrives in the encore as the root notes of a Handel piece is craftily overlaid with vocal harmonies using lyrics from classics like "Autumn Leaves", "Killing Me Softly" and "Hotel California". The result is spine-tinglingly sublime, beautiful and heartfelt. Through humour, creativity and technical mastery this group overpower any conceivable modern peril or tragedy to remind us of just how much fun can be had in an hour and a half.