Sketchwright

Here’s another musical short review.
The basic musical phrase is familiar from the movie _The Bridge on the River Kwai_ (whistled there, here in a minor key). The name of the phrase (according to wikipedia) is Colonel Bogey March. Anyway, a very familiar few notes taken to an extreme to parody Beethoven’s sonata style.  I’m not an expert in classical music, but I am a fan and so am familiar with Beethoven’s work and I had a great sense of familiarity when listening to this piece.

Since Dudley Moore wrote this parody piece, you can see elements of writing within.  First off, he uses familiar classical music structure to introduce the piece and have it progress, inserting familiar “quotes” from Beethoven within.  You hear other elements of writing (musical and comedy) there as well.  There’s the familiar theme, repetition, variation in tone, variations in speed, and finally the resolution (that changes but continues longer than it “should”, getting a good laugh).  Dudley Moore also shows of his excellent piano playing.  Unusual skill always helps out a sketch.

I am extremely fond of good musicians who do sketch comedy.  Why?  Because good musicians know the value of practice and craftsmanship, and that is often lacking in fringe level sketch comedians.  Audiences are much more forgiving of a sloppy sketch comedian than a sloppy instrumentalist.  Take someone who has never done sketch comedy and give him two weeks to put something up on stage and he’ll get laughs.  Take someone who has never played the piano and give him two weeks to perfom and the best he can do is get some laughs by not taking it seriously (and the audience will agree the playing is crap).  It takes effort to get to an acceptable level with an instrument, and it takes far less effort to get laughs on stage.  Unfortunately, some people think that means it takes almost no effort at all to be good at sketch, and they’re wrong 99.9% of the time.

Three stars!

*****
Bonus Video! A snippet from Dudley Moore’s appearance on The Muppet Show!  I would LOVE to see something like this in a live sketch show.  It is funny, shows great skill, and is short (26 seconds).