{"id":4755,"date":"2018-11-16T10:11:06","date_gmt":"2018-11-16T10:11:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.larkreviews.co.uk\/?p=4755"},"modified":"2018-11-16T10:12:28","modified_gmt":"2018-11-16T10:12:28","slug":"ukulele-orchestra-of-great-britain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/?p=4755","title":{"rendered":"Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong>White Rock Theatre, 15 November 2018<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p>It may not quite be Christmas but the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain has started its seasonal tour with an invitation to local enthusiasts to join them in a number of familiar Christmas pieces. Opening with Leroy Anderson\u2019s <em>Sleigh Ride<\/em> they passed seamlessly through Neapolitan songs, New Romantics and <em>Silver Machine<\/em> to the point where all could join in <em>Good King Wenceslas. <\/em>Their tongue-in-cheek approach works exceptionally well with a minor key, Russian arrangement of George Formby\u2019s <em>I\u2019m leaning on a lamp-post<\/em> coming close on the heels of <em>I\u2019ll be watching you<\/em> direct from their appearances in China.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/Ukulele-Orchestra-of-Great-Britain.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-4757\" src=\"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/Ukulele-Orchestra-of-Great-Britain.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"168\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>After the interval we were all able to join in <em>Jingle Bells<\/em> before songs by Joni Mitchell and Grace Jones, a spirited rendition of <em>Lime House Blues<\/em> and a galvanising <em>Highway to Hell. <\/em>One of their greatest strengths is the egalitarian feel to the event with all eight members taking turns to lead, sing solos and provide the jokes. This was never more obvious than in the glorious ensemble where one player provided a classical underpinning and the other seven sang different songs, all in the same key and remarkably harmonic.<\/p>\n<p>Concluding with <em>We wish you a Merry Christmas<\/em> they returned to give us David Bowie\u2019s <em>Heroes<\/em> as a rousing encore. We could happily have asked for a lot more.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>White Rock Theatre, 15 November 2018 It may not quite be Christmas but the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain has started its seasonal tour with an invitation to local enthusiasts to join them in a number of familiar Christmas pieces. &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/?p=4755\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4755"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4755"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4755\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4758,"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4755\/revisions\/4758"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}