Play It Again

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Play It Again is a documentary series on BBC One, featuring celebrities trying to learn to play musical instruments. The series started on 25 March 2007 and is narrated by Tamsin Greig.

1 Episodes
2 Events
3 Book
4 External Links

[edit] Episodes

[edit] 1: Jo Brand, playing the organ.

Jo progresses in a series of steps starting with playing a piece for a church service, then she plays at a ballroom in Blackpool ("From Russia with love") where she does not perform well, She also accompanies the "Ave Maria" for a wedding service before her ultimate challenge, which was to play Bach's "Toccata" in D minor in front of 8,000 people at the Royal Albert Hall. After a faltering start she managed to finish the piece with no further mistakes. Jo was given a tutor for regular lessons and also met up with Jools Holland for some tips on the Hammond organ. She began by thinking that she could practise in between all of her other commitments, but soon found that she had to devote much more time to rehearsing than she had expected.

[edit] 2: Frank Skinner, playing the banjo.

Frank began with tutor, Pete Stanley, he learned enough to play along with a Birmingham based banjo group and to entertain some brummie pensioners although more with his wit than playing skills. He also took his banjo to the World cup in Germany where he used it for one of his podcasts and also busked in Munich. Frank also joined Hayseed Dixie on stage at one of their gigs and played duelling banjos with them with modest success. Sadly he could not get along with his tutor and stopped seeing him before his final challenge which was to enter a bluegrass competition in America. Fortunately he met John Dowling a previous winner of that competition who took over teaching him. Sadly his entry was marred by nerves and he performed below expectations at the vital moment.

[edit] 3: Aled Jones, playing the drums.

Aled began with tutor Erik Stams an American drum teacher at Drumtech college in West London. Aled played Are You Gonna Go My Way by Lenny Kravitz as his exam piece before his first really hard test. Erik is a big fan of Led Zeppelin and so a Led Zeppelin tribute band was sought to provide Aled with his next challenge. Aled met up with Led Zep Too and got a masterclass in John Bonham style drumming from their drummer. He undertook to learn "Rock and Roll" and "Whole Lotta Love" however the latter was soon dropped as it was too hard. After only two proper rehearsals with the band he was introduced to a rowdy but appreciative audience in a music pub in Camden. He played slowly but well and the audience were won over by the fact that he could play at all. He was then being lined up to play with a major rock act for his final test but instead, after missing several lessons, he himself arranged to play with Chris De Burgh. Although this finale was in front of fifteen thousand people it was much less physically or technically demanding than his earlier performance and he managed to pull it off to everyone's satisfaction.

4: Robert Winston, playing the saxophone. 5: Diane Abbott, playing the piano. 6: Bill Oddie, playing the electric guitar.

[edit] Events

Play It Again is also trying to get people interested in playing music. The BBC have organised several free events, between 21 April and 15 July 2007 around the UK.