Review of The Mikado performed at Royal & Derngate (Royal), Northampton by the Northampton Gilbert & Sullivan Group

Never having seen a complete production of any Gilbert & Sullivan show before and with mostly my only experience of their music coming from The Two Ronnies, the Northampton Gilbert & Sullivan Group's production was always going to come as a surprise. Opera has also never been on my list and I listened in a certain amount of trepidation to the opening "If You Want To Know Who We Are" and remained unsure to its end despite its impressive quality.

However with the arrival of "A Wand'ring Mistrel" in the form of Nanki-Poo (Tom Rushton), things all of a sudden became clearer and the comedy that I was expecting slowly began to emerge. It built from those opening few moments in my mind of not being sure if this was for me, to nearly three hours later my not wanting it to end.

We are presented at the start with a simple oriental set, stylish and clean which remains unchanged throughout the entire production. Against this backdrop the performers, bedecked in wonderful colourful costumes from the Costume Store, tell their tale of self-execution, love, false death and suicide. All the markings of lovely comedy!

Once again from an amateur production, the cast are superb (one single prompt all show on opening night is fine by me) and show a devilish amount of skill. Top of the honours have to be Charles Mills as Ko-Ko and Simon Crask as Pooh-Bah. Between them they crank the comedy levels to one hundred percent. Crask carrying his terrible burden at his waistband for tremendous comedy effect, as well as projecting his booming, pompous voice I am very sure to the distant edges of the upper circle. Mills though is the star through the whole production, a jovial but put upon presence and "smooth" dance moves during "Here's a how-de-do!". Also his little list performance during "As Some Day It May Happen" is just magnificently perfect. The rest of the cast are also all superb, including the wonderful sour-faced Katisha played by Ann Whittaker with her groping techniques (poor Ko-Ko). Rosie Kalve is also wonderful as Pitti-Sing and from my own ear, the best singer of the production.

The modern and local alterations to the show are excellent also, with many lovely new things "put on the list". Indeed after a minor few of last nights crowd, I have a few myself I might be putting on my own list. Kudos also for getting Weston Favell and London Midland into Gilbert & Sullivan. Also worth special, special mention are the fans (of the waving variety). There was a lot of my fans bigger than yours going on, and the actual fan work of the cast was superb, just stunning.

So once again I have yet another genre to be putting on my list (in a good way this time), it was an absolute hoot of a show, wonderfully put together by director Tim Hurst-Brown and featuring a superb fourteen group band directed by David Chambers. Go and put your botty-pooh in a sitipu position and see the wonderful Town Of Titipu!

««««½

Performance reviewed: Monday 16th March, 2015 at the Royal & Derngate (Royal), Northampton.

The Mikado is on at the Royal & Derngate until Saturday 21st March, 2015, details here: http://www.royalandderngate.co.uk/whatson/2015-2016/Royal/165951/?view=Standard

For further details about the Royal & Derngate visit their website at http://www.royalandderngate.co.uk/

Review of The Strange Tale of Charlie Chaplin and Stan Laurel at Royal & Derngate (Royal), Northampton

The Strange Tale of Charlie Chaplin and Stan Laurel is perhaps the perfect antidote to the troubled times we are in, harking back to when things were perhaps simpler and mass media and the press were less in your face. Not to say that bigshot Charlie Chaplin didn't make a name for himself in more than just the movies he made. This though is a warm show, filled with love. This show is based on the very real tale of the 1910 ship heading course for New York, which aboard were Charlie Chaplin and Stan Laurel, unknown, but part of Fred Karno’s music hall troupe, and destined for different, but very major futures. Told by an Idiot's production with Theatre Royal Plymouth (and Royal & Derngate and Unity Theatre) breaks down the tale of the voyage of the SS Cairnrona with intriguingly created flashbacks of the life, generally of Charlie Chaplin. Therefore along the course of the voyage, we see Laurel's moment as understudy to Chaplin, the birth of Chaplin (brilliantly...

Review of The Pillowman at The Playhouse Theatre, Northampton

The Pillowman sounds such a friendly title, and to be fair, his story is one of the lighter aspects of Martin McDonagh's script. It still involves dead children though, if you want to get a clear vision of how dark this play is. Set in a police state of the future, Katurian (Toby Pugh) is taken in for the content of his often violent stories and a similarity to a spate of recent child killings. Here in detention cell 13, his police captors, Tupolski (Adrian Wyman) and Ariel (Steve While) play good cop, bad cop while holding over the threat of violence against Katurian's mentally disabled brother Michal (Patrick Morgan), being held in another cell. The Pillowman is clearly a very warped story, with the blackest of black comedy, and often also very offensive with it's racial stereotyping and disability. In fact, it is no surprise that a couple left in the interval, as I would happily admit that this play is far from everyone. I like a good black comedy though, and ...

Review of Northern Ballet - The Great Gatsby at Milton Keynes Theatre

This production of The Great Gatsby performed by Northern Ballet was my fifth encounter at the theatre of a full ballet production and as before, I happily share my review of the show with nearly zero knowledge of-the-art form and more of a casual theatre-goer. You could say that this is a poor direction to come in on a review, but I would say that casual audience are the ones to review this for. Over the years, Northern Ballet has set quite a high benchmark for ballet productions, and any audience member who is worth their salt as a ballet fan would no doubt have tickets for this new touring version of the 2013 version of The Great Gatsby , lovingly created by David Nixon OBE. So much is Nixon part of the very fabric of this show, that he not only provides the choreography and direction but also the initial scenario and costume design (assisted by Julie Anderson). So, discounting those ballet fans already sitting in the audience, what does this offer for the more casual theatre-goer ...

A Small Mind At The Theatre

Search This Blog