Not anything to do with Benjamin Britten's "Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra", but rather the much more modern and much more loopy Bill Bailey's "Remarkable Guide to the Orchestra" which screened on BBC2 tonight.
The most frequent words from my lips as I watched this show were directed at Bill Bailey.
They were:
"You sick, sick, bastard. I fucking love you!" This phrase, or variants on it, were uttered many times as Bill Bailey first introduced the different instruments (for example, did you know that bassoonists are all actually playing hits by the Bee Gees whatever classical work they're playing in? Neither did I until Bill Bailey revealed it...) Bill Bailey's explanation of how the oboe disappeared from Emmerdale (at the same time as the word "Farm" disappeared from that soap's title... apparently, not a coincidence!) was also very twisted.
After this, we were treated to a journey through the range of expression that orchestral music can provide - from the original (cockney-influenced) William Tell Overture to 1970s US cop shows, taking in orchestral versions of some of Bill Bailey's stand-up stage songs (such as Docteur Qui and Insect Nation. He also revisted his theme of disliking the Eastenders theme tune, an enacted a "character leaving" scene with full Hollywood-style orchestral backing, to show how it should be done.
Bill Bailey is an absolute genius; the show was written entirely by him according to the credits (the second name in the credits was Anne Dudley, who conducted the orchestra and was credited as "musical director" - the web page suggests she assisted Bailey in arranging some of the pieces too). To rework William Tell Overture in the way that Bill Bailey did for tonight's performance is just brilliant.
Absolutely hilarious entertainment.
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