The Best of Victor Borge Act One and Two

Amazon.com

Victor Borge was a master at combining two seemingly disparate elements: comedy and classical music. While the Dane's dapper dignity fit the image of "longhair" music, Borge undercut it with broad physical comedy, clever spoofs, and off-the-cuff wit. A pioneer in the field of live comedy recordings, Borge is nevertheless best appreciated on video, and The Best of Victor Borge Acts One and Two captures a 90-minute concert that includes many of his most famous routines. He chides late-arriving members of the Minneapolis audience ("I come from Copenhagen and was here before you!"), falls off the piano bench, and reads his sheet music upside down. There are a few unwitting guests: a stagehand drafted to turn Borge's pages, soprano Marylyn Mulvey who tries to sing a Verdi aria through Borge's teasing and scolding, and Sahan Arzruni as he and Borge play a two-piano Hungarian rhapsody on a single piano by climbing over and around each other. Borge also presents an opera "written by Mozart but credited to Salieri" ("so you can imagine what kind of opera it is") and proves that he's not merely a clown by skillfully performing a set of waltzes and lullabies. In addition, two of his best-loved sketches are nonmusical: Inflationary Language, in which numbers in language, like the economy, are increased ("I'll go back to Elevenessee.... Three-dleoo."), and Phonetic Punctuation, in which a period is read aloud to sound like fft and an exclamation point fsss fft. Like Anna Russell and PDQ Bach, Victor Borge helped make classical music accessible to a wide audience by showing that it could be laugh-out-loud funny. --David Horiuchi

Customer Reviews:

phonetically the best!.......2007-07-13

As a child I enjoyed an LP by Victor Borge, and now as an adult have thoroughly enjoyed seeing the DVD of Mr Borge. My children, who love classical music, found him completely entertaining and loved the Soprano. The highlights for all being the Phonetic Punctuation, Inflationary Language and the piano duet. Highly recommended.

Great Gift Idea.......2007-07-10

I bought this dvd for my husband for Father's Day. He loves it!! I highly recommend it for the humorous music lover in your life.

Good clean fun!!! Hard to find these days!!!.......2007-05-15

Love the comedy and the music of Victor Borge. It's fun to watch people that see him for the first time and see the laughter that he creates. It is so refreshing to see comedy that does not enclude a four letter word in every sentence!!

Victor Borge At His Best! .......2007-04-22

If you're looking for piano chuckles a la mode, this is the one! Here is a man who was also a gifted virtuoso in the classic repetoire who brought 75 years of his long life as an entertainer with a sharp wit that was and still is captivating! I now have all the Victor Borge DVD's but this one singles out one performance with doses of his classic [no pun intended] routines yet coming from Borge and his marvelous manner of delivery, they endure their retread status as it were. And the crowd duly verifies both the fun and the laughs! Mightily!

Even his ad hoc interaction with the audience is taken very well and one can see that the audience literally loved the guy! In one case in this DVD, a woman has a rather audible yet distinctive laugh akin to a clucking chicken and after hearing same for more than a few times, Victor comments, "Pardon me, Madam, are you laying eggs?"

All the routines are present in this one live performance including the famous Borge "phonetic punctuation" thing and related Borge signature skits and laughs a la mode. Check out the other available Victor Borge DVD's as well!

Non-stop fun but unique to the Victor Borge personality ... and talent! I'll leave you with one of his end-of-performance quips which generally brought on roars from the crowd, to wit, "I wish to thank my parents for having made this evening possible [pauses ...] and my children for having made it necessary." Neggie-Neggie! [sic]. If you know 'that' one from the "instant Japanese language" routine, you know Victor Borge! A 'performer' for all seasons!

Doc Tony

Victor Borge--the hilarious Dane.......2007-03-09

Both a brilliant pianist and an exceptional comedian, Victor Borge is scintillatingly, if not outrageously, funny in several of his most famous skits. Well worth the cost, and worth the time to watch, if you like clean humor.

DVD:

DVD

DVD