All Male HMS Pinafore
Sasha Regan’s
Theatre Royal
Brighton
The award-winning team that did Pirates of Penzance take Gilbert & Sullivan below deck, where the WW11 sailors set out to find a distraction from the goings on above board with a production of one of their favourite shows – H.M.S. Pinafore
For something so very gay it’s played utterly straight with very little mugging although the odd knowing wink adds to the fun. It’s seriously tight, like a lot of the costumes, allowing the firm pert prose to strain and push against the soft flowing melody’s and produce that clarity of definition which is so important with any Gilbert and Sullivan production.
The cast are uniformly excellent and uniformly sexy in their uniforms, which are tight and cut to show off their buff bodies, although I’m sure this is just an accident of the costume designers I can’t believe that such titillative thought has so gone into this piece that from each and every angel that you view it you’re viewing a perfect piece of vibrant Gilbert and Sullivan operetta but also a straight polished piece of high knowing deconstructive ironic camp, but then again they are one and the same thing.
The central forbidden romance played with such tenderness by handsome pair Tom Senior and Ben Irish with his robust countertenor, so that every fluttering heart, stumbling brutish moment played to perfection.
Neil Moors baritone as the Captain brought some fun to his role and his interactions with David McKechnie’s Buttercup were mutli layered and delicious. With a few wonderful touches of perfectly timed clowning from Richard Russell Edwards these boys shone and the cast, all of them, sang beautifully, dancing with precision and brought full octane brilliance to the Theatre Royal stage.
Like the Les Ballets Trockadero de Montecarlo these lads can sing, act, dance and ensemble their strong sexy hearts out and it’s this consummate skill which allows the fun to flow though. Yes it’s totally daft, but it’s also completely honest and although having lithe gym fit men playing the sisters, the cousins and the aunts is silly on one level, it’s silly in a long tradition of men playing female role but also committing to the role completely. It also allow us gayers in the audience, and there were quite a few in tonight, to enjoy the sight of love scenes, seductions, dancing and wooing all done by beautiful men to each other in a very British setting indeed. It’s not so much homoerotic subtext but glorious revelry.
You can check out the cast here and some back stage photos from the show’s face book page.
I was surprised how much I liked it, (apart from the muscles, flecking, tight shorts and fit bodies of this handsome cast…) and I’m no great fan of Gilbert and Sullivan but this show just goes to prove that with enough commitment to carrying an idea thought to its illogical conclusion and with a supremely talented cast you can get just about any crazy idea to take wing and fly.
It’s an acoustic production, so no mic’s which seriously shows how clear the diction of this cast is, both as individuals and ensemble singing. The Spartan set, used with great imagination reflects an idea of amateur productions, no budgets, boys schools, army barracks, and the thin translation of the action to the second world war gives an austerity feel, which is touch perfect.
Lizzi Gee’s clever gym based choreography is a delight to watch and seriously shows off the strength of the cast, in more ways than one. With constant light and bouncing playing from Richard Bacon on the piano this completes the feeling that what we’re watching is much rougher than it actually is. Another sophisticated sleight of hand from Sasha Regan which adds to the delight of the whole piece.
I’d recommend this show for people who are huge fan’s of G&S, it reinvigorates it, but also for those that like something bizarre, almost like a fringe show, who like their theatre silly and also high energy, stylish experimental and fun. For such a formal piece of English high empire nonsense it’s given a seriously contemporary feel but without the need to change the plot, narrative tension or even the lyrics. It’s cocking an eye to Handel and Shakespeare’s convention of gender flipped roles; it’s also raising an eyebrow at the deliciousness of deconstructing such a heteronormative piece of British Theatre.
It shouldn’t work, or should be panto knockabout silliness. It does work, its laugh out loud funny and a serious examination of the essential contradictions in the heart of the social criticism and the (re)examination of loves forbidden & disapproved of by society of Gilbert and Sullivan which they wrapped up in all the frills, starched colours and stiff upper-lippy-ness of Empire reserve. It’s a parody of a parody of a parody, a Klien bottle of cleverness and shines with its love of the medium. It’s just the Queers who are getting the skewing this time round and that, my fellow benders, makes it all the more fun.
It’s also got the most splendid happy ending, the audience (most of whom know Pinafore inside out, and had probably been in a production of it) loved it, seriously loved it.
Plays till Sat 25
Theatre Royal
New Road
Brighton
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