The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain

The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain is a London-based musical ensemble that forms in 1985 and remains active. It performs and sings music from a wide range of genres, all arranged for ukuleles in different registers. Since 2005, it performs as an octet with eight ukulele players, including one bass ukulele player. The group uses traditional orchestral dress on stage, with the men in black tie and the women in smart evening wear.

Formation and membership

The orchestra is founded in London in 1985 with the aim of challenging expectations about the ukulele. George Hinchliffe is the musical director and one of the founders, and Kitty Lux is also a co-founder. Kitty Lux dies in 2017. Current members include David Suich, Peter Brooke Turner, Hester Goodman, George Hinchliffe, Richie Williams, Will Grove-White, Jonty Bankes on bass ukulele, and Leisa Rea, who joins in 2006. Regular substitutes include Dave Bowie, Nick Browning, and Ben Rouse. Nick Browning also plays in the Ukes & Lutes side project with George Hinchliffe.

Repertoire and performance style

The group’s concerts mix songs, instrumentals, medleys, and original pieces. Its repertoire includes reworked versions of Kate Bush’s Wuthering Heights as a swinging jazz number, Ennio Morricone’s theme from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Tchaikovsky’s Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy, Anarchy in the UK in the style of Simon and Garfunkel, and the Shaft theme. It also arranges medleys such as David Bowie’s Life on Mars? alongside My Way, For Once in My Life, Substitute, and other songs. The orchestra also composes and performs its own music. Comedy is part of the performance, including occasions when up to five players use a single ukulele and passages where the players split apart within a piece. The group often gives advance notice of audience-participation numbers and provides a link so that people can prepare beforehand.

Appearances and projects

The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain performs at venues and festivals in the United Kingdom and internationally, including Carnegie Hall in New York, the Sydney Opera House, the Royal Albert Hall, and Glastonbury Festival. It tours across the USA, Canada, Japan, China, New Zealand, Australia, Germany, France, Belgium, Austria, Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Norway, Ireland, and Great Britain. Television appearances include Jools Holland’s Hootenanny, BBC Radio 2 Electric Proms, Blue Peter, The Slammer, Richard & Judy, This Morning, Skins, and Ant & Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway, where it performs with Robbie Williams. It also appears at the VE Day 50th anniversary celebrations in Hyde Park with Cliff Richard and Vera Lynn, before a large audience.

The group creates a number of special projects, including Dreamspiel, a ukulele opera composed by George Hinchliffe and Michelle Carter for the Grimeborn Festival at the Arcola Theatre in 2008. It also presents Ukulelescope in 2010 and 2011, performing music alongside silent films from the British Film Institute archives. In 2012, it performs Waly Waly on the Ukulele, using arrangements of Cecil Sharp’s collected folk tunes at Birmingham Town Hall and Cecil Sharp House; recordings from these performances are released in 2016 as The Keeper. In 2014, it presents When This Lousy War is Over, marking the centenary of the Great War through music drawing on patriotic, pacifist and feminist attitudes, as well as gipsy music, music hall, soldiers’ songs and a piece from the Cabaret Voltaire in neutral Switzerland.

Recordings

The discography includes the studio albums The Ukulele Variations, Hearts of Oak, A Fist Full of Ukuleles, Pluck, The Secret of Life, Precious Little, Christmas with the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain, and (Ever Such) Pretty Girls. It also releases the compilations Top Notch and the Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down) EP, as well as the live albums Live in London #1, Live in London #2, Still Live, Uke-Werk, and The Keeper. DVD releases include Anarchy in the Ukulele, Prom Night – Live at the Royal Albert Hall – BBC Proms 2009, The Ukes Down Under, and The Ukes In America.

Singles and chart entry

Its version of Dy-na-mi-tee, with vocals by Hester Goodman, reaches number 81 in the UK singles chart in 2005. The CD single also includes covers of Wonderful Land and Natural Woman, with male lead vocals on the latter provided by George Hinchliffe.

Additional notes

The orchestra’s output includes a large back catalogue of recordings. It also avoids George Formby’s songs for much of its history, though it later includes a Russian Cossack-style version of Leaning on a Lamppost.