Bring a cushion! (chairs provided for mums, dads, grannies and grandads).
Original songs, tunes, choruses, humorous sketches and audience participation. The one hour Musical Mystery Tour show features a wide variety of musical instruments to see and hear: the ukulele, mandobass, guitar, fiddle, mandolin, banjo, Victorian bodiless violin and percussion. Sing along with the Parrot-Parrot from Hong-Hong-Kong-Kong and twist your tongue around the Flock of Fat Flamingoes. Gobble! with the Christmas turkeys.
PRESS REVIEWS:
‘Classics, original songs and tunes... with charm, wit and expert musicianship.’ BBC Website
‘Splendid musical fun.’ The Daily Telegraph
‘At the end, you could see the little ones brimming over with enthusiasm for music, and a few of the parents ruing the day they gave up learning the violin.’ The Stage
‘I have never seen anyone explain the workings of a mandobass – essentially a cross between a mandolin and a double bass – to children before. Simon Mayor and Hilary James have the remarkable ability to do so, while putting across ideas about sound and rhythm in a way that very young children can understand. And they are entertaining with it.’ The Scotsman * * * *
Simon and Hilary have toured the world playing to both adults and children. They have written and performed for numerous BBC Radio and TV programmes, appearing everywhere from Playdays to live broadcasts on the classical music station, Radio 3. Simon is regarded as one of the world’s leading mandolin virtuosos, as well as a fine fiddle player and guitarist.
Hilary, described on BBC Radio 4 as ‘one of Britain’s finest voices’, plays guitar and some rather unusual bass instruments. She is also a qualified teacher.
Together they have worked as songwriters and musical directors for BBC TV and Radio, and also presented BBC Schools Music programmes for six years. They have written over fifty childrens songs which feature on their Musical Mystery Tour CDs. A Musical Mystery Tour songbook is published by Faber Music.
