WHERE THE HOKEY POKEY "IS" WHAT IT'S ALL ABOUT

Showstopper at The Secret Policeman's Ball

Posted over 2 years ago
Back in 1979 John Cleese organised the first Secret Policeman's Ball, a fund raising comedy and music event for Amnesty International. It has been a regular event ever since, and this year's bash was at The Royal Albert Hall on October 5th. It was recently shown on UK television and for many, me included, the performance that stole the show was performance artist David Armand with Natalie Imbruglia. David has apparently been doing a routine for some time where he does a sign language, karaoke for the deaf version of Natalie Imbruglia's Torn. He revived this for the show, but what made it special was that Natalie was singing (very well) live off stage, and joined him halfway through the performance. When she joins in the signing routine it is priceless. Go watch.Now that you've seen it, think about joining Amnesty International, and at the very least, make a donation.

Comments (8)

  1. david hyman says secret policeman's balla and "other" ball were awesome records. i gotta go find them on ebay right now. especially the solo pete townsend stuff.
    Permalink posted 11/11/2006
  2. david hyman says and... this video clip is funny stuff.
    Permalink posted 11/11/2006
  3. Neill says Excellent! Made me laugh....
    Permalink posted 11/11/2006
  4. Neill says Excellent! Made me laugh....
    Permalink posted 11/11/2006
  5. Neill says Oooops! Mogs havin’ another epileptic attack!
    Permalink posted 11/11/2006
  6. Manos says The first one (or whichever one had Sting singing Message in a Bottle) made us join Amnesty in the first place. This is brilliant.
    Permalink posted 11/11/2006
  7. fairportfan says Don't forget that Cleese's old buddy Tim Brooke-Taylor played a significant part in getting the Amnesty concerts going. I think that the funniest single bit in the early shows was Cleese, Graham Chapman and Tim, three grown men wearing full black-tie formal rig and each holding two squares of cardboard, doing a burlesque-style line-dance fan dance routine... CHA CHA CHA! There's an incredible performance of I Don't Like Mondays in there somewhere, too. *Rock'n'Roll Trivia Datum # 23795A*:
    I Don't Like Mondays was written during and after a live appearance in-studio at Georgia State Unversity's student station WRAS (88.5 FM). The news about the shootings that inspired it came in over the news wire (...the Telex machine is kept so clean...).
    They performed it live for the first time that night at the Roxy; it was still incomplete, with handclaps at a couple of points where the lyric wasn't quite finished.
    *Current National Terror Alert Level* Terror Alert Level

    Permalink posted 11/11/2006
  8. dead mike says wow! they still have these! they were so huge when they came out, must have music...
    Permalink posted 11/19/2006

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