Ukes!

It must be ten years since my brother introduced me to the music of the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain, via some very well-played cassette tapes. I first saw them perform live in Crook Library, introduced by a librarian who had been assured that they were good, but not in what way (she reappeared at the end of the evening, and thanked them with huge enthusiasm and a touch of shell-shock). It was a small audience, but a happy one, even if some of them didn't seem entirely to have noticed what had been done to the songs they were greeting so fondly (and in some cases singing along to).

Since then I have seen the Ukes at Cecil Sharp House in London (the home of the English Folk Dance and Song Society), and at a village hall in Teesdale, where half the audience were die-hard Ukes fans, and half lived locally, and turned up for whatever was on at the village hall (some them presumably hoping it would be bingo) - and jaws dropped audibly as the realisation rippled round the hall that this was Wuthering Heights that George was singing. And of course I saw them hit a sudden mass audience on Jools Holland's New Year Show. Despite which, as we left the Sage last night I overheard someone behind me explaing earnestly that "Well, I was looking forward to it, of course, but I wasn't expecting that!"

There is always a joy in the sheer unexpectedness of this: a row of (outside London) seven musicians in formal dress - the bow tie and little black dress, as appropriate, of other orchestras - each cradling what looks like a miniature guitar (is it just the relative, or does the tallest musician really have the smallest ukulele?). As for their repertoire, it is so rich and various that the big surprise was probably when, a few years ago, they cast off their fear of 'the F word' and introduced a version of George Formby's Leaning on a Lamppost (only, since Formby was, apparently, a big star in the Soviet Union, with his little balalaika in his hand..., their version was darkly Russian-flavoured).

Highlights of last night's show included the familiar - Wuthering Heights, Life on Mars (or maybe not) - plus some new material. They have recorded a Christmas record, and I'd expected, given the season, to hear a lot of that, but the servings were very subtle. I'd never realised Slade's Merry Xmas Everybody was such a - such a pretty song. Teenage Dirtbag was completely new to me, and samarcand couldn't help (ah, but thank you, YouTube), but Hester gives it all the wistfulness of Frank Mills.

So that's the festive season well begun, then...