For the Archive, we have flied our reviews of several past Gilbert and Sullivan productions on one page. Scroll down for the one you want, or just browse.

Gondoliers Apollo Theatre Autumn 2001

For as long as Gilbert and Sullivan's operettas were protected by copyright, revivals generally had to follow the originals slavishly, and only a very few examples of tinkering (like the 1940s Hot Mikado) were permitted. But now it's open season, and London is getting to see one of the wilder and more inventive of the new-style G&S productions in this transfer from Berkshire's Watermill Theatre.

The original Gondoliers is the tale of a missing prince who was sent as a baby to a Venetian family, where he was raised with their own son and nobody quite remembers which is which. With his father dead, and a duke's daughter to whom he was contracted as a baby now expecting to be the new queen - not to mention the fact that the two Venetian brothers have both just married - are you following any of this? You're not really supposed to; like all of Gilbert's librettos, it was just a way of making complications that could be sorted out by the end, and would be an excuse for some songs.

OK, this time around, the heir to an Italian mafia empire is believed to be one of the two supposed sons of a London restauranteur, married as a baby to the daughter of a Chicago Don. But the two Londoners have just married two waitresses, and the American girl is in love with her bodyguard. You don't have to know the original to guess how things will turn out and, as in the original, the fun is to be had along the way.

I don't want to go overboard in praising this. It's not the greatest musical since My Fair Lady. But it is such a high-energy, fast-moving romp that even the most curmudgeonly of Gilbert and Sullivan purists would have difficulty resisting its appeal, especially since it has its tongue so firmly in its cheek it's a wonder anyone can sing.

Well, they can all sing, and dance, and what's more, everyone in the cast of eight plays at least two musical instruments, so that, in or out of character, they wander about the stage (in John Doyle's fluid direction and choreography) accompanying the songs. Probably those familiar with the original will get more of the in-jokes along the way, particularly in Sarah Travis's witty re-arranging and rewriting of the songs. But even a G&S neophyte can enjoy the way the Chicago family's songs have a 1940's jazz flavour, the Italian numbers sound a bit like Lloyd Webber, and the British characters stick closest to Sullivan's original arrangements. One might even catch them cocking a snook at that other musical around the corner, as one hears a distinct ABBA-type sound, most notably in the climactic "Dance a Cachucha."

The cast double and redouble roles so skilfully that it is a bit of a surprise how few of them there are at the curtain calls. Rebecca Arch and Josephine Baird, as the newlywed waitresses, are equally at home in ingenue sweetness and incipient-harridan brassiness, while Elizabeth Marsh brings impossibly long legs and the languid bearing of a Fosse dancer to the American child-bride. Karen Mann has fun playing two very different matriarchs, and also blows a mean trumpet.

The male roles are a bit less clearly defined, but Christopher Dickens and Eddie Burton are attractive as the not-very-bright but cheerily adaptable brothers, Mark Crossland gives some presence to the underwritten role of the bodyguard, and Mike Afford finds comic meat in the Duke of Plaza-Toro figure, the down-at-heels Chicago mafioso.

Again, I don't want to push this too hard. Its virtues are pleasant more than overwhelming. But I would certainly recommend it to someone looking for an uncomplicated bit of entertainment on a summer's evening.

Gerald Berkowitz

H.M.S. Pinafore Savoy Theatre, Spring 2000

The D'Oyly Carte Opera Company doing Gilbert and Sullivan at the Savoy Theatre - it just doesn't get much more English than that.

Of course, it is the several-times-rebuilt Savoy and, for that matter, the several-times-rebuilt D'Oyly Carte -- and, for that matter, a rebuilt Pinafore. But in every case the change is for the better.

The Savoy is one of London's most beautiful small theatres. The D'Oyly Carte, which fell on hard times a while back after slipping into dusty museum-piece reproductions of tired old stagings, has been rejuvenated.

And Pinafore, trimmed a bit, updated a bit (to the 1920s), and sparklingly directed by Martin Duncan, is a delight. This is the one with Poor Little Buttercup and the Ruler of the Queen's Nay-vee, and Never Mind the Why and Wherefore. It's the one about earnest sailor Ralph Rackstraw, who loves his noble captain's daughter, who's too far above his station until a just-before-the-final-curtain confession by Buttercup reveals his true identity.

The current production, first staged in 1994, hits almost exactly the right mark somewhere between reverence and ironic send-up. The choruses are the best I've ever seen in a G&S production, the men moving effortlessly from butch singing to chorus-boy dancing in Lindsay Dolan's witty choreography, the Sisters and Cousins and Aunts cleverly individualised.

The principals are perhaps a bit less wonderful. It is part of the convention that the lovers be colourless, but Yvonne Barclay and Joseph Shovelton (one of two couples alternating the roles) are particularly bland. Though the both sing beautifully (Like many in the cast, their background is opera more than musical theatre), it is only in the Why and Wherefore trio that she shows much personality.

Tom McVeigh is spot-on as the noble-but-dense Captain. Sam Kelly as the landlubber Naval Lord is more comedian than singer, and his performance could stand more comic shtick. The same is true of Martin Nelson's Dick Deadeye, who could be more moustache-twirlingly villainous; and Jill Pert, who plays Buttercup with a welcome hint of Mae West that could be broader.

And there's no amplification. Let me say that again: there's no amplification! There's no credit to a "sound designer." They don't wear silly microphones taped to their foreheads or cheeks. Those are real, human voices you hear. And if that means you occasionally have to listen hard to catch every word, fine. These are, after all, some of the cleverest lyrics ever written, and you should make a bit of effort to appreciate them.

Pinafore does make some demands on you. It is an elegant miniature, not a grand spectacular. You have to put aside any desire for falling chandeliers and the like, and attune yourself to little delights.

If the idea of an anthem to the hero's excellent taste in choosing to be born English tickles you; or if you can enjoy the multiple layers of satire in Sir Joseph's account of his rise from office boy the Naval Lord; or if Sullivan's now-sprightly, now-beautiful music sticks in your mind, you'll love it.

Gerald Berkowitz

H.M.S. Pinafore Open Air Theatre Summer 2005

A delightful play in a delightful setting - there isn't too much more you could ask for on a pleasant summer night.

The Shakespeare-in-the-Park theatre does one musical each summer, and this year it's a sprightly reworking of the Gilbert and Sullivan classic - the one about the sailor who loves the captain's daughter, who's supposed to marry the Lord of the Admiralty.

In true Gilbert fashion, it all works out through the most unlikely means possible, but in true Gilbert fashion the plot is just a barely-tolerated frame on which to hang classic songs that you've known all your life even if you don't know you know them - the one about poor little Buttercup, the one about being never ever sick at sea, the one about the ruler of the Queen's na-vee, the one about how (In spite of all temptations/To belong to other nations) he is an Englishman,  and the deservedly show-stopping 'Never Mind the Why and Wherefore.'

Herbert Appleman has written a new book that follows Gilbert's plot but perks it up with a lot of new jokes and a knowing self-mocking air. The slimy villain Dick Deadeye (played with strong touches of Popeye by Gary Wilmot) has become a mildly cynical observer, who points out before we get a chance to that these supposedly burly sailors move and sound a lot like chorus boys, and who cries 'Wait a minute!' every time the plot gets a little too silly.

(I'm pretty sure it is Appleman who inserted a costume party, though it may be designer Paul Farnsworth or director Ian Talbot who decided that everyone should come dressed as other Gilbert and Sullivan characters.)

Gary Wilmot is fun as Dick, Desmond Barrit is a very satisfyingly solid Sir Joseph, Giles Taylor almost steals the show as the chorus-leading Boatswain, Hal Fowler as the Captain and Lesley Nicol as Buttercup add to the fun, Scarlett Strallen sings beautifully as Josephine and Simon Thomas is no more wooden than all tenors are as Ralph.

If you're looking for the traditional Fun Night Out, here it is. If you're a Gilbert and Sullivan fan, this is just about the best Pinafore you're ever likely to see. And even if you're not a big G&S fan, I defy you to resist it.

Gerald Berkowitz

Iolanthe Savoy Theatre Spring 2002, then tour

Gilbert and Sullivan's Iolanthe is the one about fairies in the House of Lords - hence the witty subtitle "The Peer and the Peri" - and its debut in 1882 scores highly on G&S trivia points: it was the first new opera to play D'Oyly Carte's just opened Savoy Theatre (Patience had opened there after transferring from the Opera Comique), Sullivan was knighted early in the run (Gilbert, whose words mercilessly lampooned the Establishment, wasn't - for another 20 years), and we got a new word - fairy-lights - named after the new-fangled battery-driven lights worn by the fairies.

The fairies in question are not happy ones over the banishment of their sister Iolanthe for marrying a mortal and having a child. That child, Strephon, is now a young man, in love with Phyllis, a "Ward in Chancery" (you'll have to work that one out for yourself) who is in turn highly sought after by a gaggle of peers in the House of Lords.

The tale is a delightful one - and it is this that has made the opera such an enduring favourite with the public since artistically it's hardly a ripper. Although there's room for argument as to the hit status of particular songs or routines, this cannot hide the fact that the music while accomplished is stodgy (all those knowing Wagnerian leitmotifs) and that the book is patchy, cut to shreds as it was in the original production.

Indeed, Sullivan's score exudes little of the lush musicality of its immediate predecessor Patience while Gilbert's lyrics merely hint at the sublime acidity that was to follow in The Mikado. In a way this is reflected in this production which lacks much of the dazzle and slickness that has characterised the other offerings in D'Oyly Carte Opera Company and Raymond Gubbay's new series of G&S works.

Iolanthe is a deceptively simple piece and music director John Owen Edwards and director Martin Connor should have put their heads together a while longer. Too many grand opera voices are permitted to blunt G&S's trademark subtleties, further muddied by keeping the pointless concatenation of songs in the middle of Act II as Phyllis gradually extracts herself from her noble suitors. After all, things positively dazzle when the light of dialogue shines on the proceedings.

Highlights are indisputably the two major comic roles. Jill Pert's Queen of the Fairies is a matriarch of Wildean proportions, and Royce Mills, better cast as the Lord Chancellor in an ideal world, makes a storming Private Willis, squeezing laughs from each gag, pun or droll observation long after you'd think there be no more. Between them they save the show from acceptable mediocrity, supported of course by the sumptuous array of faux Victorian costume that so perfectly helps to set up the comic situations throughout.

As the Lord Chancellor, Paul Bentley is neither forceful enough nor witty, although he redeems himself with an energetic if workman Nightmare Song. However, David Fieldsend and Gareth Jones are interchangeable as the Earls Tolloller and Mountararat while Paul A Heywood seems lost as Strephon and - the wardrobe department should be alerted - looks plain peculiar in his wig and tight trousers. Charlotte Page is a fine-voiced Phyllis, and, as her prospective mother-in-law Iolanthe, Maria Jones, who demolished Pitti-Sing in 2000's The Mikado, has found a better suited role here and one that she delivers with impassioned flair.

The female chorus is deliciously vivacious, offset by the males who are as funny and in good voice yet much less disciplined, and there are some very good touches to the action, such as the addition of Strephon's remote control for the appearance of a swing. As a bubbly satire on politics and the Establishment, Iolanthe ultimately sweeps any criticism before it. Like The Mikado, it is as relevant and resonant - and funny - as ever.

Nick Awde

The Mikado Savoy Theatre Autumn 2000, then tour

Pop down down the Strand one of these evenings and you'll get a chance to witness a bit of theatrical history in the making. This latest version of Gilbert and Sullivan's evergreen musical (well why not? - time to leave the term 'opera' to the Wagnerites) ensures that D'Oyly Carte's triumphant return after many years absence to its spiritual home, the Savoy Theatre, will be at the vanguard of a much-needed revival of G&S classics for years to come.

For those of you who haven't yet caught the show live or Mike Leigh's film - released earlier this year - here's a quick plot set-up: the Mikado's son Nanki-Poo, disguised as a minstrel, woos the fair Yum-Yum, who is betrothed to the much older Lord High Executioner Ko-Ko. An impending visit from the great Mikado throws Ko-Ko into panic since he has been woefully remiss of late in the beheading department. It therefore seems convenient for all concerned to see Nanki-Poo wed Yum-Yum so long as he agrees to be executed a month afterwards.

Colin Lee is a focused Nanki-Poo balancing romantic lead with humour and a fine voice while Jaqueline Barsey's Yum-Yum, although a little shrill, is suitably dizzy and funny with it.

Richard Suart's Ko-Ko is both manically humorous and sympathetic at the same time. His Little List number is pertinently updated and includes pet hates such as 'dotcom-ists', microcyclists and crop-geneticists. As his bureacratic counterpart Royce Mills produces a masterfully pompous top official Pooh-Bah, playing unashamedly to the crowd and deserving every laugh.

It's not all that seamless, however. Deborah Hawksley gives an energetic performance as Katisha, the distinctly unbeautiful older woman who takes advantage of the law to coerce Nanki-Poo into becoming her unwilling husband, yet to these untutored ears she gratingly warbled as if she'd just come off the set of The Ring Cycle.

Although placed in a Japanese setting, the characters and situations are blatantly British - in fact, a blistering satire of all things bureaucratic. The show's design and wonderful costumes are accordingly a dazzling mix of kimono, headknot and City gent pinstripe, and there's even one point where the Houses of Parliament complete with Big Ben to form a magnificent backdrop.

Earlier this year on the same boards, we had the chance to experience a ripping HMS Pinafore - a trifle overcamp yet restrained enough to allow its natural drama, humour and melodies to reach out to fans old and new. This second offering, no doubt emboldened by the welcome the nautical farce (now deservedly touring) received, has clearly had a sizeable budget lavished on it and not a penny has been wasted.

A classic night out for the modern theatregoer, an absolute must-see - and remember that every song's a hit.

Nick Awde

The Pirates of Penzance (or: The Slave Of Duty) Savoy Theatre Spring 2001

Aside from being one of Gilbert and Sullivan's more accomplished works and that, for copyright reasons, it premiered in 1879 in New York, rumour has it that The Pirates Of Penzance holds the distinction of being the world's first internet 'web opera' (please turn now to your search engine of choice to test the claim's veracity).

While not as sublimely farcical as HMS Pinafore (written the previous year) nor conceptually perfect as the later Mikado, Pirates is an extraordinarily accessible work. Each song's a hit, a gag in every line, the plot teetering majestically between a single, gloriously appalling pun and an equally unlikely paradox.

This is the one which starts on a rocky sea-shore on the coast of Cornwall, where young Frederic is coming to the end of his apprenticeship (embarked upon because when his dad said get him a job as a sea 'pilot', Ruth the Maid heard 'pirate' - don't blame me, I just report it) with the notorious but somewhat less than successful pirates of Penzance. Anyway, suddenly a gaggle of the daughters of Major-General Stanley descend on the island for a beach party and one thing leads to anotherŠ

In the lead role of Frederic, Tim Rogers has problems in projecting both his spoken and sung parts, but an undeniably fine voice combined with matinee good looks mean you can probably forgive him. Charlotte Page's Mabel suffers similarly, but her ballad Poor Wandering One is as good as any I've heard and the duo compensate with a delightful How Beautifully Blue The Sky, with the massed daughters lending humour with twirling parasols and a peeved weather report.

But like all good swashbucklers, it's the supporting characters who really make the show. As the harried yet wily Major-General, Royce Mills (in a hat-trick appearance for the company's three productions so far) plays again shamelessly to the stalls and gods and is in better voice than ever. His I Am The Very Model Of A Modern Major-General demonstrates why this word fest is a timeless musical masterpiece and why he is must now be considered our foremost apologist for G&S comedy if not a master of breath control.

James Cleverton's Pirate King cuts a dash worthy of Errol Flynn, while Patti Allison's rejected maid Ruth bounds back into action with balls to match those of her pirate comrades. Gareth Jones creates an imposing Sergeant of Police but is subdued in leading that paean to public service When A Felon's Not Engaged In His Employment. Suffice to say that all the pirate choruses are rousing to a man.

The orchestration is spot-on, the dialogue snappy and the vocal sections fluid (choreography is more a matter of controlled movement in view of the excellently large cast). The costumes are lavish and the wit sparkling. Which all in all makes Pirates worth every penny of the price of admission.

With Mills and producer Raymond Gubbay firmly at the helm, the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company has happily proved that it is no flash in the pan in introducing Gilbert and Sullivan to the 21st century. Most likely they've got Yeoman Of The Guard or The Gondoliers in mind to follow - but a touch of Patience anyone?

Nick Awde

The Pirates of Penzance Orange Tree Theatre Winter 2006-2007

A few years ago, Chris Monks 're-imagined' Gilbert & Sullivan's hit comic operas The Mikado and The Pirates of Penzance. He clearly had immense fun, as this revival of the latter proves, offering today's audiences the chance to experience a thoroughly enjoyable romp that should please old fans and make many new ones.  

If you know the show, scroll down a couple of paragraphs. If you don't, then it might help to know that this is the one about Frederic, the orphan pirate apprenticed to a band of seafaring cutthroats (actually big softies who revel in their notoriety). The genteel Frederic is hardly the world's most natural pirate and, on the day his apprenticeship concludes (his 21st birthday), he admits he longs for the company of pretty women rather than a life of dastardly derring-do.

By the strangest of coincidences, the voluptuous unwed daughters of the local major-general promptly turn up in bathing suits on his Cornish beach. What transpires is a witty poke at polite society that even in its original 1879 form has remarkable resonances for the present day.  

From the moment he appears at his coming-of-age party, bizarrely set at a graveside, Stephen Carlile's Frederic is a masterful study of the classic Englishman torn between loyalty and doing the right thing, while Philippa Stanton is a bundle of bespectacled energy as plain-Jane Mabel, the unlikely object of his affections.

Vainly trying to keep them apart are Craig Purnell's laconic Pirate King and Alan McMahon's lugubrious Major-General Stanley, aided and abetted by Julie Jupp's spurned Ruth ­ a feisty 'Pirate Maid of All Work' and the only woman Frederic has clapped eyes on until Mabel's timely appearance.  

It's a strong ensemble, with all 12 members clearly enjoying every second and relishing the challenge of performing in the round, whether they're abseiling from the balcony, being human deckchairs or merely drenching the odd audience member with water.  

As a deliciously popular satire set to catchy foot-tapping tunes, Pirates is a genuinely timeless show with universal appeal. Monks succeeds equally as both adaptor and director, since he updates without losing any of those key elements of hit songs, beach beauties, class conflict, organised crime, cop chases and executions (so it's your standard comic opera thenŠ)

The 'Baywatch meets Reservoir Dogs' concept of Monks' original 1996 production has been updated to The Sopranos, hence the seemingly limitless string of sight gags with guns and wise-guy cracks.

Stripping down the story and condensing the songs creates a fast-moving show and yet, it has to be admitted, this is at the price of some loss in plot (minor problem) and drama in the songs (slightly less minor). Certainly, 'I Am a Pirate King' is not the stirring opener it should be, while 'A Paradox' is frustratingly shapeless. Additionally, the new thespian-themed ending rather takes the wind out of the whole show's sails.  

Nevertheless, numbers such as Mabel's hilariously virtuoso 'Poor Wandering One', her father's scattergun 'I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major-General' ­ amended to be as topical as the 9 O'Clock News ­ and the security guard chorus line 'When a Felon's Not Engaged' are alone enough to make Pirates worth the price of admission.  

Nick Awde

The Yeoman Of The Guard Savoy Theatre and tour 2002

The D'Oyly Carte Opera Company and producer Raymond Gubbay got off to a flying start with their new series of Gilbert and Sullivan but it has really been just a question of time before they hit a rut. And they've hit one. This would be understandable if it were a simple case of diminishing artistic returns (the company started with the hits and is working its way downwards), but here it is unforgiveably cack-handed direction and lacklustre performances that render this show a dud.

The Yeoman Of The Guard is not a bad piece at all. Admittedly it lacks the gothic camp of its immediate predecessor Ruddigore, and only hints at the sparkle of The Gondeliers that followed, but it does tell a cracking story. First performed in 1888, this is the one set in in the Tower of London during Tudor times where the dashing Colonel Fairfax awaits execution. Sentenced to die in an hour on trumped-up charges of sorcery, as a final wish he marries Elsie Maynard, a strolling singer given him by the jester Jack Point. Phoebe, daughter of one of the Yeomen, loves Fairfax from afar and, aided by her sympathetic father, she helps him to escape, causing all manner of delicious complications. And to spice up the tension, it's set in real time.

Of all the collaborations by Gilbert and Sullivan, this is considered the one that most approaches grand opera. Gilbert had come up with a plot that for once did not pillory the Establishment and Sullivan accordingly felt inspired to shift to a more serious level of composition he had long craved that would nudge their partnership onwards. Yet when Gilbert shoehorned his usual comic conundrums from pitching class and marriage against each other into the enclosed space and society of the Tower of London, things become strangely personal, human and intimate.

The perceived wisdom is that this is the only G&S opera with a tragic ending and that Jack Point is their only tragic character, but it also happens to be one of the most comic. So there is a strong argument that, whatever the original intent, this grand opera element lies not in the music but in its spirit and only the most gifted of directors should take it beyond light opera. Give it the good old G&S oomph you'd give their other works and the climactic emotions will take care of themselves.

Here, however, Ian Talbot directs a cast that flounders its way uncomfortably through both acts, weighed down by an badly lit, ugly, inflexible, claustrophobic set. Most of the leads betray a distressing lack of ability in the singing department and few seem to have any clue that they are acting comedy. The production comes across as The Merry Wives Of Windsor construed as Gotterdammerung - indeed the sung diction is so bad the lyrics may as well be in German. Musical director John Owen Edwards conducts a tight but somehat subdued orchestra but really should have paid more attention to the lamentable vocal performances onstage.

The pivotal Jack Point as played by Paul Barnhill exudes neither wit nor pathos in sufficient amounts to grab the spotlight at any point in the proceedings (and whose post-modern idea was it to have a jester who does not wear jester costume?). More worryingly, as Elsie Maynard, the love interest of both Jack and Fairfax, Janet Fairlie displays visible difficulty in sustaining a note and (there's no other way to say this) cannot act a farthing. It is unsurprising therefore that the highlight of the show, Jack and Janet's duet fizzles away with each refrain of "I have a song to sing, O!"

Royce Mills, that stalwart of previous productions, is unaccountably missing and sorely missed. Nevertheless, there are some good points to savour. Maria Jones is delightful as the inventive Phoebe - though perhaps not as smitten as one would expect and her deep tones are distracting - while Oliver White's Colonel Fairfax invigorates the performers around him each time he makes an entry. His infectious energy makes it appear as if he carries a window of comic veracity through which the plot makes sense and the humour comes shining through. And to the minor role of Kate, Sophie-Louise Dann adds welcome texture with her bell-like soprano, particularly in the way she underpins the quartet number in Act II of "Strange Adventure!".

The chorus too acquits itself well - the males and females complement each other excellently and are in fine voice but they otherwise given little to do in the movement department aside from the impressive tableaux vivants during the Overture.

All in all, it looks as if they just want to get this one out on tour as quickly as possible. For fans of the company only.

Nick Awde

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Review - The Gondoliers - Apollo 2001 Review - H M S Pinafore - Savoy 2000 Review - H M S Pinafore - Open Air 2005 Review - Iolanthe - Savoy 2002 Review - The Mikado - Savoy 2000 Review - Pirates of Penzance - Savoy 2001 Review - Pirates of Penzance - Orange Tree 2006 Review - Yeomen of the Guard - Savoy 2002