A Son of the Rock

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.