Gilbert and Sullivan Goes Wrong.

 So to the ENO for Pinafore last February.  A warship of a show, hard to mess up. 

But for us, they kinda managed to.

Mel Giedroyc - who we at the Trees normally like, as a rule - was a 'special guest star', and she kept on popping up as a meta-guest, who was chaotically interfering with a show of the Pinafore.  Rather like a second rate version of The Play That Goes Wrong - where the play is a G&S performance.  Her style of clowning clashed with much of the rest of the comedy in the show, and the whole thing was rather scrappy.

Disappointing.

More Shows

So we booked four shows.

Indian Ink in Hampstead

HMS Pinafore at the ENO

Into the Woods at the Bridge theatre

Arcadia at the Old Vic.

...results were mixed...

Shows...

 We at the Trees have been to a lot of shows recently - or it seems more than normal.

So here is a list of some of them

Groundhog Day (Tim Minchin's version) at the Old Vic.  We did like the film, but felt the musical was better in a number of ways.

English Kings, Killing Foreigners. A reworking and reconsideration of Shakespeare's Henry V from a queer colonial perspective.  At the friendly Camden People's Theatre.

Tom Lehrer is Teaching Math and Doesn't Want to Talk to You.  Upstairs at the Gatehouse, in Highgate Village.  Essentially a Tom Lehrer jukebox musical, and all the better for it.  Of course, given how gifted Lehrer was, they needed a pianist and a singer.  And there were a few cuts to the songs. Hey ho.  It was still brilliant fun.  The audience were mouthing along with joy.

The Pirates of Penzance at the ENO.  Done straight, pretty much, but great fun.

Dr Strangelove, with Steve Coogan.  Not a bad go at the classic film. 

Guys and Dolls at the Bridge.  A great show. Really fun.

Die Fledermaus at the Greenwich theatre.  Good, if not perfect.

Nye At the National.  Absolutely wonderful and uplifting.  Everyone should see this to understand where the NHS came from.

Dear England at the National.  Another piece looking at the state of England.  Worth seeing, but we argue it isn't really about the football!

Yum Yum

Excellent!
Mikado at the Coliseum yesterday evening, for the last night of the latest (14th!) rerun of Jonathan Miller’s production from the 1980s.
The translation to an England that is all hotel lobby, and the gargantuan, topsy-turvy, creamy white set, still work to show up just how much Gilbert really, really wasn’t talking about Japan.
A small point. I really appreciated the surtitles, as – as with most G&S – it’s important to keep track of the libretto.
So good.

Major Versions

Today's XKCD is wonderful - a cartoon rendition of G&S's "Modern Major General."   And if you click on it you'll find you link through to a YouTube video of a company singing the original on the Beeb - lead by Simon Butteriss as the MG.

And then, only a few hours later, this appeared online:


Marvellous....

Basingstoke

We went to see the Opera North version of Ruddigore at the Barbican last night.

Lots of Fun, especially the special effects in the second half.

It wasn't a G&S I knew very well, and I really did enjoy it...



Basingstoke!

The Curse of Tom Lehrer

This is kind of hard to explain well, but here goes.
School opera. End of school year, so we went along to support them and enjoy ourselves. Eldest had some involvement.

The Mikado. Now, I have been a G&S fan for a long time, and The Mikado was one of the first of the Savoy operas I ever heard or saw. (I have a peculiar memory of seeing it on telly with Eric Idle in the role of Lord High Executioner?). Watching the school production (which was very good), lots of the libretto came flooding back, including famous phrases such as 'Merely corroborative detail, intended to give artistic verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative'. Trips off the tongue, really.

Anyway, a few days later we started off on Summer Hols, and embarrassingly I began to sing the finale song (or one of them) - about how he's 'gone and married Yum Yum,' of course. I suddenly found myself going wildly off-piste (according to eldest, who stuck to the correct chorus). I'd announced in my weak, off-key way that: '...I love she and she loves I...'. What was this? My memory of the operetta from way back had failed me.

Anyway, eldest fiddled around in the back of the car and solved it for me. He produced his shiny i-Pod thing, which tinnily blurted out:

To end on a happy note, one can always count on Gilbert and Sullivan for a rousing finale, full of words and music and signifying nothing.

That I missed her depressed her
young sister named Esther,
This mister to pester she tried.

Now her pestering sisters
a festering blister,
You're best to resist her, say I.

The mister resisted,
the sister persisted,
I kissed her, all loyalty slipped.

When she said I could have her,
her sisters cadaver
Must surely have turned in its crypt.

Yes, yes, yes, yes!

But I love she and she loves me.
Enraptured are the both of we.
Yes I love she and she loves I
And will through all eternity!

See what I mean?

So in my mind, I'd replaced the real lyrics from the finale of the Mikado with Tom Lehrer's (admittedly brilliant) pastiche. Which seemed to join perfectly with part of the real chorus.

I suspect the part that it superseded in my mind was:

Nanki-Poo:
- The threatened cloud has passed away,
Yum-Yum:
- And brightly shines the dawning day;
Nanki-Poo:
- What though the night may come too soon,
Yum-Yum:
- We've years and years of afternoon!

Sigh. What can you do about the man?


I think it's the combination of real musical skill and astonishing lyrical dexterity that gets me.

Some of the jokes may have dated slightly (who really remembers the 'Cool School'?) but so much of this is wonderfully fresh.

Copying...

So.

I've just had my eldest boy introduce me to Tom Lehrer's Lobachevsky - which I first heard, thanks to Neil Frowe, in 1976, in Collingwood.

But they both took just the same amount of pleasure in sharing it with me. And both enjoyed singing along (or was that me?).

What Neil couldn't know of (he only had the records) was the YouTube video of Tom Lehrer teaching Maths (derivation) to a tune from Princess Ida.

Oh, yes, he also couldn't introduce that song to me in 1976 'cos it hadn't happened at that point. It came from the '80s. Causality is a bitch.

Anyway, despite loving my eldest, I have to put on record: "One man deserves the credit...."