Iolanthe at the Maltings Theatre, St Albans as part of the Roman Theatre Open Air Festival and Touring.
Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩
Hats off to the cast for cheerfully continuing on a relentlessly wet night. They stopped ten minutes in so that the stage management team could cover the set and the fairies could don ponchos. Thereafter most of the company sang under umbrellas with surprisingly few wonky notes and fluffs.
No wonder the Italians laugh at us… but there’s much to be said for the indomitable British spirit. And this Iolanthe is great fun whatever the weather. It takes more than a two-hour downpour to dampen the exuberance of G&S done as well as this is.
It’s an original take on Iolanthe – set in a dusty Westminster library. But it’s astonishing how few changes you need to make to WS Gilbert’s words to make it hilariously topical. Turn Strephon into a parliamentary groundsman, Willis into a parliamentary librarian, slip in a few Brexit references and you’re away.
It’s a lovely touch too, intentional or not, for Earl Tolloller (David Menezes) to look like a cross between Michael Gove and Dominic Cummings and for Earl Mountararat (Matthew Siveter) to look like John Cleese playing Enoch Powell. Yes, director John Savournin and the Charles Court Opera Company know how to make G&S sing in every sense.
The bijoux cast of only nine allows you to hear every single harmony and every word. Choruses originally intended for quite large groups become, with a bit of rearrangement, quartets or trios and the whole thing feels focused and fresh. Energetic, well choreographed (by Jo Meredith) movement adds a lot too.
Natalie Davies has a wine-dark old fashioned contralto voice which is exactly what the Fairy Queen needs. Llio Evans is good value as the outraged, pragmatic Phyllis looking, in jodhpurs and hacking jacket, like a young Camilla Parker Bowles.
And of course, Richard Suart has been performing this material for a very long time so he knows exactly how to squeeze every naughty nuance out of the Lord Chancellor. He also has the wisdom (ably supported by MD David Eaton on keyboards) to sing his famous numbers at speeds which allow each word the space it needs.
Susan Elkin
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