Everyone knows where they stand with Gilbert and Sullivan, right? Either you love the jolly, witty Victoriana or you imagine that sort of thing is best left unwatched and go off in search of something cutting edge and avant-garde. Members of the second camp should put their preconceptions on hold for Thom Southerland’s ‘Mikado’ at Southwark’s Union Theatre. With an all-male cast and only a piano for accompaniment, the production manages to make G&S look almost radical, while playing the whole thing with such obvious affection and commitment to the spirit of the piece that there is nothing to upset fans or purists.
Southerland has wisely dispensed with cod-Japanese accents, nor are the cross-dressed members of the cast elaborately costumed to hide their masculinity. Stripped of these sorts of artifice, the piece acquires a thrillingly raw theatricality. This pared-down aesthetic also allows the broadly comic characters an additional depth. Nanki-Poo’s love for the betrothed Yum-Yum, and Katisha’s doomed pursuit of Nanki-Poo both manage to be, at times, remarkably poignant. The cast is uniformly outstanding and adorable, although Martin Milnes stands out for his sympathetic, sweetly vulnerable falsetto performance as Yum-Yum.
Without lavish orchestral back-up, the music also feels revivified. While the faster, more elaborate songs – enhanced by Vanessa Fenton’s equally witty choreography – still belt along, the slower numbers have almost an edge of Weimar cabaret torch songs about them. Overall, this is great fun delivered quite, quite brilliantly.
2 comments
Check out my two cents on this great production at http://www.danwithatwist.com/2008/08/three-littlemaids. html
wowwwewrzerzezzrrs.
what else can i say.