Nicola Lisle looks forward to the Ukulele Orchestra’s visit to Oxford

They’ve been plucking all over the world for 30 years and by September will have clocked up one billion seconds of playing time.

It’s the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain, and they are celebrating their 30th anniversary with a typically far-reaching tour that sees them travelling across the UK and over to Australia, New Zealand and the USA.

Next week, the ‘30 Plucking Years’ tour comes to the New Theatre in Oxford, where the orchestra will be serving up its trademark cocktail of music, wit and banter.

The fact that the ‘Ukes’ were once listed at the Edinburgh Festival as a comedy act, rather than a musical one, says a lot about what audiences can expect.

“It’s a fun night out. We’re trying to give audiences a good time,” says Will Grove-White, who joined the orchestra in 1991 when he was just 15.

“The idea of choosing the ukulele as an instrument is that it’s an instrument without a pedigree.

“There’s not really much that has been played on the ukulele so you can do anything you want with it – classical music, rock’n’roll, punk, reggae and jazz.

“We’ve got eight ukuleles, from big to little, and we all sing.”

At 42, Will is the ‘baby’ of the group. How did he get involved? “I was playing at school, but it was the 80s and nobody really played the ukulele then. It was a very difficult instrument to get hold of – not like today when they’re everywhere. So it was hard to find people to play with.

“Then I read something in the paper about a ukulele group, this kind of cool bunch of guys down from Leeds, and that was the Ukes, so I started watching them.”

What attracted him to the ukulele?

“Well, it’s a fun instrument, and it’s very quickly rewarding. I learnt the piano for a bit, but found it very complicated. The ukulele was something I could play.”

Over the past 30 years the popularity of the ukulele has soared and it is now flourishing in schools. The Ukulele Orchestra must be able to take some of the credit for that, I suggest to Will.

“Definitely. The popularity of the instrument has grown since the early 2000s. The big thing that happened was the Internet and YouTube, and this is the reason we’ve been able to keep going for so long.

“We did Jools Holland’s Hootenanny one year, and someone unknown to us put it on YouTube. Then we noticed it was getting all these hits.

“Then people were calling us up, asking if we could do a gig. So the Internet really helped spread the word, and we like to think we’re part of the growth in the ukulele’s popularity.”

The orchestra’s own popularity is partly down to their musical wizardry and sense of fun, but also their strong rapport, both on and offstage.

“After 30 years we’ve been through most things that we can go through. We all know each other’s characters inside out.

“It’s like a bizarre second family. It’s a really nice group of people, and we balance each other out.”

Which is just as well, considering the amount of time they spend together on tour. “We do about 110 gigs a year,” says Will.

“That’s a lot of plucking!”

Where and when
Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain, New Theatre, Oxford, Thursday September 3, 7.30pm.
Tickets from atgtickets.com