UKULELE ORCHESTRA OF GREAT BRITAIN, Austad Auditorium, Val A. Browning Center for the Performing Arts, Weber State University, April 5

Zany and irreverent barely begins to describe what the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain is all about. The group is made up of eight singing ukulele players strumming everything from soprano to bass ukes. And anyone whose ever seen them will never look at ukes the same way again.

The band came to Weber State University Friday to close out this season’s Cultural Affairs concert series. From the opening “Hooray for Hollywood,” everyone in the nearly sold out Austad Auditorium realized they were going to be in for something wild and unexpected.

The eight are more than musicians – they are comedians who tell jokes and sling one-liners and use music as their props. Nothing is sacred and everything is fair game for spoofing.

That’s not to say they’re not serious musicians. The eight are virtuosos of their chosen instruments as they showed numerous times during their two-hour-plus show. After all, there aren’t too many ukulele players who can crowd around a tiny soprano uke and play it en masse as The Ukes did – at one point six of the eight did just that and did it quite well.

The eight also have other talents. Bass player Jonty Bankes is an accomplished whistler. He showed his ability by whistling the Bourrée from J.S. Bach’s Third Orchestral Suite.

Whistling as an art form also came in handy when they performed the theme from the spaghetti Western, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.

There is no lack of repertoire for The Ukes; they play everything from classical music to today’s pop songs – they did a song by Adele Friday night – to video game music to themes from old American TV shows. Their second encore, in fact, was a hilarious take on the theme from The Beverly Hillbillies.

But one of the funniest, and most demanding pieces they did had founder George Hinchliffe playing a tune by Handel that accompanied the rest of the gang as they sang some of what they called their “favorite” songs, which included “Fly Me to the Moon,” “Autumn Leaves” and “Killing Me Softly.” The climax had the seven singing these tunes at the same time, without missing a beat or getting lost.

The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain needs to be seen to fully appreciate what they do. And once you’ve seen them, you’ll have a hard time forgetting them – as if you really wanted to, anyway.