A Small Mind At The Theatre

My first and only encounter to date with a live Gilbert & Sullivan production came with last years The Mikado from the Northampton G&S Group and this year I was back for their 2016 production a little more aware of what to expect. I knew a small amount about The Mikado before seeing the show, however The Yeomen Of The Guard was utterly unknown territory to me, and this was much how I preferred to find my theatre. At the outset during a very long overture much of the cast gathers upon the stage and goes about their washing, spinning and bread making business while a couple of yeomen guard a prisoner, Colonel Fairfax (Phil Abbott), rather cleverly appears at both theatre boxes during the intro giving equal opportunity to the audience members to observe his exercising and flexing his muscles. Also being very observant of the Colonel is Phoebe (Georgia Grande), daughter of yeomen of the guard Sergeant Meryll (Mike Gray). The opening song When Maiden Loves  sung wonderfully by...

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...