Comedy – Feeding my Ignorance

Time for Some More Comedy

George McConnell — Sat, 06 Mar 2021 21:18:12 +0000

Quite often have something ‘lighter’ for the weekend – here it is.

Many of you will be very familiar with the Carnival of Venice – you may not have heard this version – and even if you have it is worth another listen!

How often has your bandmaster told you that you have got to be able to sing your part in order to play it well? Here is a bit of proof what you can do!!

The link is to the middle of a concert – the full concert is fun!

Danny Kaye : Carnival of Venice

The King of Musical Comedy

George McConnell — Sat, 16 Jan 2021 16:45:38 +0000

OK – so its pushing it a little to make this qualify as a music video – attending a Victor Borge performance mostly consisted of a lot of build up and not so much music – however, it was always a pleasure to listen to.

Borge was a very talented musician – you have to be to “mess about” quite so successfully. Coming from a “pre-www” age he didn’t require a huge repertoire of routines, since few people saw them too often. I think I saw him live three or four times – you know what was coming with his jokes – but the delivery (and the atmosphere of fun he created) still made you laugh.

Another connection (which helps qualify this video as my choice) is that this was recorded in the same theatre that Boscombe Band played in when visiting Minneapolis.

These videos are only viewable on YouTube, so unfortunately I cannot embed them here.

Victor Borge : Act 1

Victor Borge : Act 2

Comments :

Edward Mylechreest

Fantastic evening of watching, thanks for the VB reminder George!

Howard J Evans

He is very funny and always makes me laugh, but I always got frustrated waiting for him to play something!! And still do watching this!

Maureen Hunt

Have always enjoyed watching, very funny but extremely clever

Steve Thomas

thanks George, I was lucky enough to see him live in Southport about 40’ish yrs ago I don’t think he played more than 10notes, until the end, then wow! alas they don’t make them like that any more

George McConnell

I think he was one of a kind!

Sunday Humour

George McConnell — Sun, 09 Aug 2020 11:46:45 +0000

This is a bit different to my ‘usual’ Sunday choices – but it seemed so appropriate – and humour is such an important facet of our lives every day.

Those who have seen Hamilton will appreciate this as a really good parody – but they and everyone else will surely enjoy it in its own right as well – its been a while since we were able to gather in our respective places of worship…

Obviously this is specific in some ways to one “type” of worship – but the sentiment could surely be an anthem for all in these days.

You’ll Be Back

Back To The Funny Stuff

George McConnell — Sat, 01 Aug 2020 23:43:56 +0000

back to humour today – I expect that most of my brass playing friends have seen this performance before, but it is worth repeating – and will come as a surprise to those who have not seen it.

You have to be very skillful to pull off this sort of thing – its no good just “messing about” – and everyone here is totally invested in character – especially the central character

Mnozil Brass : Lonely Boy

Comments :

Vincenzo Arrichiello

Perfect soundtrack for sunday breakfast!

The Fun Continues

George McConnell — Wed, 29 Jul 2020 16:43:13 +0000

Another larger than life figure in the field of “humour in music” is Gerard Hoffnung. He organised a series of three festivals in the Royal Festival Hall – the third of which was coincidentally on my 8th birthday! I did have the CD set of these concerts, but somewhere along the line I loaned it to someone and they obviously enjoyed it a lot as well, since it was never returned

It is one of the pieces from that third concert that I am sharing today.

Hoffnung’s humour relied quite a lot on the visuals – so any recording misses some of the point and, sadly, there seems to be very little in the way of film records of the concerts. So you do have to exercise your imagination a little to imagine what was being seen.

There are a few such moments in this link – but most of the humour comes from the music and libretto itself and so it works better than most as audio only. I should explain that the reason that the audience laugh at the first chorus entry was due to the fact that this was a bit of an “in joke” for those attending the concert. The programmed item immediately before this one was Sir William Walton conducting (armed only with a fly swat) an excerpt from his choral work “Belshazzar’s Feast” – which after a big build up consisted of a single chord and the chorus singing “slain”. The first choir entry in this recording is a sort of “tribute” to that….

We have all heard many Oratorios – but this is a Horrortorio, composed by Joseph Horovitz (in many styles)

Joseph Horovitz : Horrortorio

Now We Have A Laugh

George McConnell — Tue, 28 Jul 2020 23:52:35 +0000

There are lots of ways that comedy and music can be combined – not always deliberately things going wrong often turn very funny – but I am aware that taste in comedy is a very individual thing – so forgive me if some of the selections that I share over the next few days you don’t find at all amusing.

I think I am on reasonably safe ground with this first one though. I saw Victor Borge live on a number of occasions and, even though his routines did not vary too much and – yes – you knew what was coming his comedic genius and timing meant that it was still funny – perhaps funnier because you did know and anticipate exactly what was coming.

There are lots of clips that I could choose – maybe more another time – but his interaction with Marilyn Mulvey was superb.

Hope it makes you smile

Victor Borge with Marilyn Mulvey

Comments :

Brian Milligan

I saw Victor Borge perform in Toronto in 1976. Took him 20 minutes to tell a 2 minute joke. Very funny.