I caught Bill Bailey’s Remarkable Guide to the Orchestra on BBC 2 on Saturday night (9/5/09.) His take was, of course, comedic, but included some semi-serious stuff about the use of bassoons, oboes, muted trombones and the like.

Even more light-heartedly we had a rendering of both the Moonlight Sonata and the William Tell Overture incorporating Cockney Music (Oi!) More examples from Bailey of Cockney Music influencing the classical arena can be found in the following clip.

The highlight of Saturday night’s show for me, though, was the Doctor Who theme tune reimagined as a Belgian Jazz song. Like the Cockney Music section this seems to be a reworking of part of Bailey’s stage show as in this clip from You Tube but he added some more jokes in cod French in the Orchestra programme. (Les Daleks ne pouvait pas monter les escaliers was one that tickled me.)

He did say, “Je suis Docteur Qui,” at one point, though. True aficionados (aficionadi?) know the correct phrase would be, “Je suis le Docteur.”

If you’re interested in music in a general sense with, like me, only a smattering of knowledge about it, search the programme out. I suppose it’ll be on the iPlayer at the moment.

Delighted to see that the Doctor Who episode “Blink” written by Steven Moffat, directed by Hettie Macdonald, won the Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form category at this year’s Hugo Awards.
I can’t comment about the other awards as I mostly have not read the stories/journals concerned. (You should see my books-to-be-read pile!)
“Blink” was to my mind the outstanding episode from the 2007 season and well deserves the accolade. Like all of Steven Moffat’s episodes it was head and shoulders above those written by Russell T Davis. Hopefully the fact that Mr Moffat is assuming the oversight of Doctor Who bodes well for future series.
“Blink” was also notable for only having about three minutes worth of David Tennant in it. Good as he is as the Doctor, “Blink” nevertheless showed that a proper, intelligent Science Fiction story could be done on TV without (much) of the Doctor as a prop.
Pity this could not carry over into “Torchwood” of which I watched the first episode and promptly gave up. I never caught the Sarah Jane spin-off stories, which, given the last two episodes of the 2008 Doctor Who season may have been a blessing.