Classical review: Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain, Queen’s hall, Edinburgh

By Sue Wilson
Published on 30/04/2012 04:00

WHILE it’s surely doubtful that any of its eight members ever envisaged as children that they would end up playing the “bonsai guitar” for a living, the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain is the musical joke that keeps on giving – as their now 27-year career and a nigh-on full house here attest.

Collectively wielding the full pitch-range of Hawaii’s native chordophone, from the diminutive soprano right through to a cunningly customised bass model – the latter somehow packing the full depth of its guitar or upright counterpart into a fraction of the size – they once again cunningly transcended their primary shtick, of transposing unexpected material onto eight ukuleles, with their mix of expert musicianship and fine-tuned comic craft.

Besides the intrinsic humour of hearing tracks as diverse as Hawkwind’s Silver Machine, the Sex Pistols’ Anarchy in the UK and Talking Heads’ Psycho Killer with this accompaniment, the Ukulele Orchestra also slyly fulfil the reinventive requirements of any good cover version.

Thus Kate Bush’s Wuthering Heights was delivered in vintage lounge-crooner style, Lady Gaga’s Born this Way received a kind of blues/rockabilly treatment, and Wheatus’s Teenage Dirtbag was reborn as a forlorn folk ballad.

Especially impressive was an interwoven medley of about half-a-dozen different songs, including Bowie’s Life on Mars, My Way, Born Free and the Who’s Substitute, whose mounting hilarity belied the formidable technical skill involved in splicing the lyrics and melodies together, and a couple of bottleneck workouts on the soprano uke that sounded for all the world like a slide guitar on helium.

Rating: ****