h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

We're off tomorrow morning at the crack of dawn to sail & rail to Cheltenham to take part in The Ukulele Festival of Great Britain 2013.

http://www.ukeristiccongress.com

The main performances take place in Cheltenham Town Hall from noon till late on Saturday. We have a thirty-minute slot at the end of the first half, around five o'clock, so we'll be set up to enjoy the rest of the acts.

James Hill will be headlining. Nice! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7pGB3gxUZk

I'll report back next week.

You'll be gone now, but have a great time anyway! Look forward to the youtubes.

Thank you TC! We had a great time and were properly lionised. More later.

The link you gave above led to several other ukelele performers, which I had fun watching.

Well it was a great lineup altogether. The final acts were Andy Eastwood, the heir apparent of George Formby, and James Hill with his girlfriend Anne Janelle on cello.

I am wary of acts where the girlfriend is included (someone mentioned the old jibe: What do you call a dog with wings? Linda Eastman) but the pair were charming and musically interesting. James is an amazing player, and in contrast Anne keeps her cello lines utterly minimal, but she does sing beautifully and her own song was winning. James did one number on a prepared ukulele--with chopsticks between the strings and bits of scratchy material stuck on, to turn it into a percussion instrument. not everyone's but I found it both inventive and persuasive. James is a natural percussion player.

Both he and Andy Eastwood also played violin, extremely well. Andy launched into a fairly complete Hungarian Csárdás, with full fireworks. His accompaniment was an onstage drummer and a multi-keyboard player who did the whole bass, strings and brass bit. I think he was the only performer this year to use a full drum kit, which I could have happily done without.

Andy told me that he never does more than ten minutes of Formby, no matter how long his performance. It is what he is best known for, but he says most people tire of Formby pretty quickly.

Here is the finale with nearly all of us performers on stage. The lead singer is Phil Doleman. Andy starts on violin: he and James Hill swap instruments later on. James Quah from our band Ukeristic Congress (soon to be renamed The Ukeristics) can be seen on the left playing his uke with a pair of chopsticks.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zi7rEDYfcF4

Here's a terrific jazz uke player and singer from Birmingham, Alabama, Sarah Maisel, with an English bass player, James Agg. Like good jazzers they met for the first time that morning, had a short run-through, and played on stage that afternoon like a long-established duo. They were a delightful surprise.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x99Z2zLzsoY

Sadly it seems that no-one filmed us on stage in Cheltenham so it remains a memory. Great occasion, though, and a tremendous buzz.