...everyone's telling jokes for Red Nose Day and Comic Relief, so here's a viola joke I rather love.
A viola player's sitting at the back of the section when the conductor suddenly keels over in the rehearsal just before the concert and is rushed off to hospital. A big tour's about to begin, and there's only an hour til this launch performance. No time to find another conductor. "Can anyone conduct?" the orchestra manager pleads, at his wits' end. The viola player volunteers - he had a shot at it once at uni, a few decades back, so he remembers the basics. The concert is a huge success! "Can you do the tour as well?" the orchestra manager asks, booking an extra violist.
The tour begins the next day and everywhere the orchestra goes there are standing ovations and rave reviews. The viola player on the podium is flavour of the month. A Twitter storm demands he be made principal conductor, nay, music director, right now. His Facebook page attracts 750,000 likes from all over Europe and the US.
After two weeks of this, the orchestra comes home and finds that its conductor is alive and well, out of hospital and on the podium. The viola player returns to his seat at the back of the section. His desk partner turns to him and says: "So, where've you been all this time?"
Boom boom.
