IN PRAISE OF … NORTH KOREAN ACCORDION PLAYING. BY ROBERT MCNEIL

A GENTLEMAN, they say, is someone who can play the accordion but chooses not to. To be fair, the accordion can be a fine instrument in the right hands, preferably French.

But, in the wrong context, the accordion can be murder. One of my first local newspaper assignments was covering a fiddle and accordion festival. Longest night of my life. Every tune sounded the same. They were so twee that for the first time in my life I longed to hear death metal.

Imagine my trepidation, therefore, as I checked out the Kum Song school accordion band on yon Youtube playing their version of the Eighties pop hit Take On Me, originally performed by — (checks notes) — A-HA.

The Kum Song school is in Pyongyang (literally “sound of an elastic band”) in North Korea. The performers are sweet, neat, tidy and respectably dressed. For a cruel moment, I envisaged them suddenly transported to any British city centre on a Saturday night. I think that — collectively, as is only appropriate — they would faint clean away.

You say: “Hey, big nose, why did you check out such a peculiar thing on yonder Tube malarkey?” I will tell you: because the video has gone viral, attracting 1.5 million hits at the time of writing and, like everybody else, I had to see what everyone else was watching.

It’s a breathtaking performance, even if your teeth start chattering uncontrollably after 10 seconds. Neither is it the first time North Korea has stormed the capitalist bastions of Youtube. In 2007, prisoners dancing to Michael Jackson’s Thriller attracted more than 50 million hits.

Mind you, they looked terrified and had clearly been forced to perform by their guards. The accordion players, on the other hand, appear to be playing voluntarily, which makes their performance all the more remarkable.