Victor Borge is a legendary performer who dazzled crowds for years with his comedic musical routines. He had perfect comedic timing, and he knew how to work a room for laughs. In his performance of ‘Dance of the Comedians,’ Victor commands the stage, and hilarity soon follows.
Victor takes his time setting up a large number of music papers, saying, ‘Take a little time, you’ll be home for Christmas,’ adding the punchline ‘Which one, I don’t know!’
He fumbles with his music pages and ends up hanging them all over the music stand, even poking one with his conductor’s baton. He even asks one of the orchestra members to hold a few pages for him.
While the orchestra waits for him to raise his arms for the first cue, he scratches his head and does some stretches. The orchestra keeps getting fooled, thinking it is their cue. They lift their instruments up and down, waiting for the right moment. Once they begin, the orchestra plays furious riffs, and Victor is scared by their aggressive nature.
Victor crumbles up each music paper and throws it on the floor after the orchestra plays a passage. Once the trumpet fanfare comes in, he looks shocked, glancing around the auditorium, wondering where the sound is coming from. The second time, the trumpet stands up and waves to him with a handkerchief.
As the violins enter again, Victor stops the entire song, yelling, ‘Hey!’ to kick out the first-chair violinist. Victor points him out, and he walks off stage dejected. Then, from off-stage, a single gunshot is heard. Victor moves all the other violinists up one chair, signifying their promotion.
On the final note, as the orchestra holds out the last chord, Victor has to look through the crumbled-up papers for the final cue! The audience is smiling and laughing while he struggles to locate the final music paper. Victor Borge has done it again! A classic comedy performance by a true musical comedian!
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