Review: Great Big Gilbert & Sullivan Show at Perth Theatre

Jun 6 2008 By Ian Stuart-Hunter

TO QUOTE Gilbert one could only feel ‘modified rapture’ at the Great Big Gilbert & Sullivan Show on Saturday night in Perth Theatre. I would have to go further and say that it was the most ordinary show I attended at this year’s Perth Festival of the Arts.

It had oversold itself both in its title and saying that it was a sparkling, costumed ‘Gala Performance’. The kimonos for the Three Little Maids pictured in the Festival brochure were indeed of superb quality, but with the exception of Carl Donohue as Sir Joseph Porter and the Modern Major General, who quite possibly had brought his own costumes, the others were all purpose, ordinary and/or ill-fitting. This was nowhere near the sumptuous, colourful costumes ETO had in Anna Bolena.

Another disappointment was that, though ably done by Janet Bishop, including keeping going with the left hand when a sheet of music dropped to the floor, there was only a piano accompaniment so Sullivan’s deft and characterful orchestration was lost.

Jill Washington who took the coloratura soprano roles had the right notes but was a little lax in putting life into her musical line. Her duet from Yeoman of the Guard with Carl Donohue was well done, with some approach to real feeling. It was not helped by tired routine stage movement. Elizabeth Menezes was given the more dramatic and lyrical arias and had a good voice, but was frequently too generalised in her response. Taking items out of context does make this had but the production should have put more effort into this. Louise Crane, as contralto, was given all the old, ugly women, which she sang very well, but looked to pleasant, shapely and young for them. She was best suited as the Queen of the Fairies in Iolanthe. Her Mummerset accent for Little Buttercup was a little overdone, though it was carried over consistently from speech into song, something which often slips with many singers.

Carl Donohue was one of the strengths of the company: his Modern Major General was excellent including a supersonic approach to the last verse, this at least was doing something out of the ordinary. One asks why he was not given a few more of the character songs. His contributions to the Mikado were good and his character as Jack Point acted the others off the stage. Justin Lavender’s contribution often sounded as though he were in a different production and his singing of Take a Pair of Sparkling Eyes was poor. Giles Davies, on the other hand, showed excellent audience rapport right from the start with his Sentry Song from Iolanthe and he enthused the willing Perth audience into taking part in A Policeman’s Lot from The Pirates of Penzance. His singing was good, accurate and well projected.

The many ensembles came off with more sparkle and life than certain solos. But much of the stage business was tired and looked as though it had been taken over without too much conviction from Gilbert’s original stage books. This included one character falling over and some bumping into one another in the Trio from HMS Pinafore.

Having said all the negative things above it was an evening which gave a deal of enjoyment from those who were good, but mainly from the excellence of the material. It is a production which needs tightening up on many fronts. Even the choice of encore seemed ill-thought-out: to repeat the chorus For he is an Englishman. And it’s greatly to his credit. in front of a Scottish audience?