For those who haven't as yet, caught on to this wonderfully delighful bandwagon, The Horne Section is a group of talented musicians who get to do some very silly things all under the po-faced leadership of comedian Alex Horne. The Horne Section have found some recent fame with shows in Edniburgh Fringe, and television exposition, but perhaps Alex Horne is more widely recognised as the thinker-upper of Dave TV's hit comedy, 'Taskmaster' which sees Horne play second fiddle [there's a musical pun in there somewhere...] to Greg Davies. However, with The Horne Section, it is Horne himself who gets to tell his band what to do, and they all seem quite genuinely to be enjoying it all. In fact, as Horne admits, he has known one band member since they were both very young and growing up together, and the others are now long-established in the 'Section' and are all firm friends. It is this that makes watching them so joyous.
The current tour (the Section's biggest to date) is split into two halves. Before the interval, we are introduced to each band member individually, each one being given their time to shine individually with a silly 'task' and a song, and an opportunity for them to show their true musicianship too. In the second half, they perform some of the more memorable comedy ditties from their ever-increasing back catalogue. Favourites such as 'What's Your Favourite Seaon?' and 'Brown Eyed Girl', as well as the hilarious, 'You Can Keep Your Hat On'.
In the second half they have now also included a 'Taskmaster' section which sees Horne ask for audience volunteers to complete a seemingly simple but inane task live on stage. This evening it involved a roll of toilet paper and a sticky toilet.....(wait for it......) roll holder! [you had to have been there!], and the loser won a CD whilst the winner had to wait for his present until they had sung a song all about it! [no spoilers!].
If this isn't too much of an oxymoron then The Horne Section provide restrained anarchy, and deliver it is such an off-beat but completely serious way. It is genuinely funny, and I was laughing very loudly for much of the evening. What makes it even more hilarious is that Alex Horne simply cannot sing [he is probably the first to admit this, so I am not being derogatory}, and yet he will still 'go for it' in a big way, and absolutely get away with it too!
If you have never heard Alex Horne's Throat Music, then you really must; but the favourite moments of the show for me were the lovely Mickey-take of 'YMCA' which finished the first act and a song which really threw me a little since it was sung in barbershop harmony quite delightfully, called, I am guessing, 'The Monger Song'.
The first half of this current tour, I would imagine, is probably (more or less) fixed and is the same in every venue. However, what will happen in the second half is much more extemporised and improvised according to audience reaction and suggestion. This evening we finished with 'The Record Player Song' and of course, no Horne Section evening would be complete without a visit from their special guest, Henry Hoover!
Alex Horne and his Horne Section pitch their comedy just right. There is a brilliant balance between music [genuine musicianship and precision] with silly banter and mucking about! It's very clever, but also very silly, and delivered with a mock sincerity that only Alex Horne can pull off! Brilliant!
Reviewer - Matthew Dougall
on - 6/6/19
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