fringe: barry morgan's world of organs

It's incredibly hard not to smile while watching Barry Morgan and the 1981 Hammond Aurora Classic from his World of Organs... in fact, it's hard not to laugh and get drawn into his infectious attitude, especially when he's so "up" all of the time.

For anyone unfamiliar with Mr Morgan and his ubiquitous World of Organs, he's kind of what would happen if Bob Downe and Liberace had a secret love child who was raised by Richard Simmons.

For anybody too young to get those three references, go look them up...

I want to get the very few quibbles I have out of the way first (and I'll gloss over the annoying people outside the show/in the audience, the fact that the guy organising the line-up did so in such a way that we were much further back than we should have been... and really, who brings a toddler to a show like this at 8:15pm?)...

I was slightly apprehensive about whether Barry could sustain a show for an hour, having only seen him in small segments on Spicks and Specks where he doesn't really talk very much and just plays the organ. And I won't lie... I think the show felt a touch repetitive early on, and the lead up to the finale was a little strange tonally speaking.

Unfortunately we were seated right in front of the speakers on one side, so I also can't help feeling that the volume was a little too loud for the size of the venue. It's only a small space and it did get very loud in there.

However, on the plus side... the fact that the show is called Barry Morgan's World of Organs lends itself to an absolute plethora of organ/dick jokes, puns and double entendre. If there were any other ways to make the word organ sound dirty... actually I think I can safely say that he used them all up...

As I said before, Barry's enthusiasm is incredibly infectious so I ended up with a big smile on my face and clapping along (as and when appropriate).

The other great thing about Barry is that he can definitely play the organ... it's not all big hair and even bigger smiles... oh no, Barry can play, even if a lot of the songs walk the line between nostalgia and 80's cheese.

Oh, and I'm also now the proud owner of a Barry Morgan's World of Organs - World Famous In Adelaide canvas bag... tres chic!

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