HMS Pinafore – London Coliseum

Les Dennis and John Savournin in HMS Pinafore at the London Coliseum. Picture: Marc Brenner

HMS Pinafore continues at the London Coliseum until 11 December 2021.

Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩ 

Colourful costumes, bawdy jokes, silly songs, Les Dennis: oh, how we have missed panto season!

That isn’t quite fair of course. Dennis has recently been praised for a string of RSC acting roles, proving himself to have talents far beyond Family Fortunes and Coronation Street. Now he is taking a crack at opera too in the English National Opera’s first ever production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s HMS Pinafore, the perennially enjoyable tale of love and social station on the high seas.

This production is directed by Cal McCrystal and the focus is squarely on comedy above all else. Fair enough, the ENO puts on enough ‘serious’ productions that you can’t blame them for wanting to throw the kitchen sink at a delightfully silly play like this when it comes along. Still, when even heartfelt, Verdi-esque arias are being interrupted with a higher rate of sight-gags than Airplane on fast-forward, it does make you feel a little sorry for the talented performer who is having their spotlight stolen. Regardless, both the cast and the audience seem onboard for some knockabout fun and the evening has a near constant soundtrack of roaring laughter.

Some say that big rooms and high ceilings are killers for comedy. The London Coliseum is one of the most spacious and grand theatre venues in the West End, but designer takis has done an incredible job of making the stage so grand, we feel entirely at one with the action. There are no particularly complicated special effects other than some jump-inducing cannon play, but the level of detail in the set and costumes is evident from the stalls to the top of the balcony. The double revolve is used to brilliant effect, especially during ‘Never Mind the Why and Wherefore’, in which Dennis is nearly given a heart attack by having to circle the stair-heavy set.

Dennis plays Sir Joseph Porter, First Lord of the Admiralty, who we learn at the start was based upon a real life unqualified and preposterous politician – in a suggestion that political satire might figure heavily in this production. Though this character is given some marvellous scenes and Dennis is the last to take his final bow, it is the commander of the ship Captain Corcoran (John Savournin), his daughter Josephine (Alexandra Oomens) and common sailor Ralph Rackstraw (Elgan Llŷr Thomas) who are the main protagonists of the play.

The performances from all three are outstanding. Oomens and Thomas for the most part play their love story relatively straight, in stark contrast to the silliness swirling around them. Oomen’s numbers ‘Sorry Her Lot Who Loves Too Well’ and ‘The Hours Creep On Apace’ in particular show off her stunning voice, which fills and delights the gigantic auditorium. As the captain, Savournin is hilarious. From his welcome speech before curtain-up, he instantly feels like a safe pair of hands and is a pleasure in his every scene.

Elsewhere, Hilary Summers as Little Buttercup is an absolute delight with her fantastic comic timing and quite formidable singing voice. Bethan Langford as Cousin Hebe (apparent leader of Porter’s chorus of sisters and cousins and aunts) also works wonders with the relatively little material she is given and elicits some of the biggest laughs of the night. There are no weak links in the cast, though it would be nice to see a little more diversity among the leads. With the ENO aiming to make opera as accessible to as many people as possible and having the resources they do for casting, that feels like quite the oversight.

For all the promise of political satire at the top of the show, little beyond that in Gilbert’s original words materialises for much of the performance. There are jokes upon jokes upon jokes aimed in all directions and though many are bawdy, few are particularly edgy. Some are downright retrograde – on the level of ‘look at this elderly person being elderly’ or ‘look how this slightly effeminate man walks’, or the bizarrely frequent Fawlty Towers, Morecambe and Wise, and Dad’s Army references – but these will immediately be followed by the latest TikTok dance to make sure no demographic is left without a smile.

A slightly worrying moment emerges when the patriotism satire ‘He is an Englishman’ is apparently hedged by having the cast wave Union flags, like Last Night of the Proms. However, they swiftly (spoiler alert – this actually happens) murder an effigy of our prime minister in a moment entirely incongruous with the light-hearted nature of the rest of the show, but which is all the more hilarious for it. It’s the sort of thing that could get you banned from Twitter in a heartbeat, but there it is on stage at the fancy fancy ENO. That the production dares this potentially risky gag is evidence of their confidence that nobody will be taking the show at all seriously. And fair enough.

The finale sees many of the most beautiful tunes of the evening (all performed superbly by the incredible orchestra lead by conductor Chris Hopkins) return as the plot gets tied up in that comically contrived but somehow still satisfying Gilbert and Sullivan style. In this final blast of ‘He is an Englishman’, the cast pulls out new flags showing nations from across the world, presumably where their families hail from. This is a genuine and touching moment in a show mostly played for laughs, and for all the gags and stunts, it is probably the moment I will remember most.

So, is a big future in opera on the cards for Les Dennis? When placed next to the incredible performances of the seasoned opera performers, his singing is not quite on the same level. Gilbert and Sullivan pieces demand both a clarity of voice and a confidence of musical timing that is difficult for many performers, let alone relative newcomers to the art. However, in an already hilarious show, his own talents for entertainment are not out of place. This HMS Pinafore makes a strong case for a bawdy Gilbert and Sullivan; a Gilbert and Sullivan that doesn’t shy away from a “take me up the poop deck” joke; a Gilbert and Sullivan panto, even. I wouldn’t be sad about more of that.

Ian Bowkett