The slow crawl of cars grid-locking the roads around Symphony Hall turned out not to be arriving to see the act inside but were actually heading for Lee Evans at the NIA.
The less than capacity crowd in the hall was not lost Igudesman & Joo, who remarked that the audience must be very rich as they had each bought two seats.
It was a joke at their own expense and if they were a little disappointed at the turn out they did not let it rein in their energy on stage.
Their show is a hybrid of serious musical training and a childhood spent soaking up British comedy (they met as pupils at the Yehudi Menuhin school).
There were times when the skits didn’t seem to have progressed much beyond the classroom – like the baroque wrestling to the Rocky theme (with the pair as a be-wigged Bach and Vivaldi) and some fake chopsocky by the Kung Fu violinist (Igudesman).
But at others their accomplishment with their instruments shone through as they managed to produce music under the most testing of circumstances. Igudesman hopped about on one leg and even played under it. Joo compensated for his small hands (“only hands small,” he assured the crowd) in Rachmaninoff’s big hand-requiring Prelude in C Sharp Minor by hitting the ivories with longs sticks of wood thrown back and forth between him and Igudesman.
London Philharmonic Orchestra were complicit in the mayhem, called on to do everything from weep at Joo wailing out All By Myself, shake what their mothers gave them to La Cucaracha, head bang and finally dance a jig (while still playing) to traditional arrangements.
There was also a good running gag about Igudesman trying to play Mozart and Joo stalling him with “helpful” suggestions.
As the audience rose to its feet while the musicians silly walked their way off stage, a quick scan proved that the duo’s musical mash ups did, as they hoped, break down barriers by proving classical pieces could be appreciated by all.
