Sasha Regan’s all-male version of Gilbert and Sullivan’s 140 year old comic opera about fairies and a wayward stupid House of Lords has a terrific, funny, energetic and touching style. A group of what look like posh schoolboys come through the auditorium with flashlights and happen upon a derelict building complete with its magic wardrobe.
This delightful and vivid production is warm enough to please the fans, clean enough to please the critics and fresh enough to draw in a new curious crowd this is smooth and fresh revival. Recommended.
Set in an ever-so English 1930s seaside hotel, bleached white with privilege and wealth Jonathan Miller’s Marx Brothers-inspired song-and-dance Mikado is a popular hit with audiences of all ages. A distant picture of Hokusai’s Great Wave off Kanagawa is one of the only gentle echos of this operettas beginnings. The combination of Gilbert’s virtuosic wit, Sullivan’s memorable melodies and Miller’s hilarious antics is irresistible, this is the 14th outing but it still fizzles and gleams with energetic fun.
This highly anticipated swashbuckling farce with its new staging is directed by Mike (I’ll never direct an opera) Leigh, who made his operatic debut this evening. I liked his version, all geometric sets and ultra-simplistic colours from Alison Chitty, they worked well, softly gliding and sliding into and out of view giving a feeling of constant change while actually being severely minimalistic. The costumes were in period and silly enough to bring smiles while maintaining the sense of propriety and dignity that is the fulcrum for a good Victorian joke.
