The Sorcerer
Arlington Arts Centre July 2009
FIRST, an admission. I'm not a Gilbert and Sullivan fan, preferring grand opera, but if every production was as sharp and funny as this one, count me a convert. Based on a W S Gilbert short story, a send-up of Donizetti's L'Elisir d'Amore, Opera della Luna's inspired production shifts the action from a Victorian village to the '70s, offering great opportunities for retro clothes and dodgy social moves. Sharp and witty, it oozed fun and inventiveness while satirising the class structure of English village life and marriage.
G & S so often means hackneyed, unimaginative productions, but this breathed new life and fun into the work. The uniformly good cast have fine voices, allied to stagecraft and excellent comic acting skills. They delivered thepiece with pace and panache. Clever use of tableaux and excellent sung and spoken diction (a sine qua non for G & S) ensured total enjoyment.
Simon Butteriss, in great form as the sorcerer John Wellington Wells, was a dead ringer for Roy Wood from The Move. He was every inch the drug dealer, in a velvet bell-bottomed suit and with glam-rock hair. His love potion, here a mixture of hallucinogenic drugs, is administered with the tea at a village feast to celebrate the engagement of Alexis and Aline. It wreaks havoc socially and morally: social codes crumble as the classes mix. All very un-British.
The love potion turns the village on. Sex suffuses the air. Odd pairings occur. As amorousness overcomes probity, Ian Besley as Sir Marmaduke Pointdextre and creamy contralto Sylvia Clarke as Lady Sangazure &endash; two pros if ever there were &endash; gave constant pleasure with their comic skills. Erring just on the right side of outright buffoonery, Besley lost all dignity with his spot-on head banging and 'grandad dancing', and he was pure Captain Mannering in his admonition of his son Alexis: 'You stupid boy.'
Alexis (Oliver John White), resplendent in purple velvet, gets the oh-so-irritating marijuana giggles, while, in a later twist, the vicar, Dr Daly (Philip Cox), a confirmed bachelor, in a hugely enjoyable performance, finds that desire has absolutely no sexual barriers.
Some amusingly updated liberties have been taken with the original libretto. Warding off the drug-fuelled advances of Lady Sangazure, John Wellington Wells invokes the class system, telling her to hate him because he drops his aitches, eats peas with a knife and &endash; a heinous crime &endash; lives in Milton Keynes. Emma Morwood as Aline, with her vibrant soprano, was sharp and sassy in Laura Ashley-inspired dress and hat. Claire Watkins, with her expressively smooth voice, was a bespectacled and shy Constance, who hopes the machinations of her mother, Mrs Partlet, sung by Susan Moore, will gain her the love of the vicar. Bass Gareth Jones was the notary. An early work, The Sorcererhas lost out in popularity to other works in the G & S canon. This sparkling production should ensure that it regains its place. A-star.
LIN WILKINSON
Newbury Today
Arlington Arts Centre July 2009
FIRST, an admission. I'm not a Gilbert and Sullivan fan, preferring grand opera, but if every production was as sharp and funny as this one, count me a convert. Based on a W S Gilbert short story, a send-up of Donizetti's L'Elisir d'Amore, Opera della Luna's inspired production shifts the action from a Victorian village to the '70s, offering great opportunities for retro clothes and dodgy social moves. Sharp and witty, it oozed fun and inventiveness while satirising the class structure of English village life and marriage.
G & S so often means hackneyed, unimaginative productions, but this breathed new life and fun into the work. The uniformly good cast have fine voices, allied to stagecraft and excellent comic acting skills. They delivered thepiece with pace and panache. Clever use of tableaux and excellent sung and spoken diction (a sine qua non for G & S) ensured total enjoyment.
Simon Butteriss, in great form as the sorcerer John Wellington Wells, was a dead ringer for Roy Wood from The Move. He was every inch the drug dealer, in a velvet bell-bottomed suit and with glam-rock hair. His love potion, here a mixture of hallucinogenic drugs, is administered with the tea at a village feast to celebrate the engagement of Alexis and Aline. It wreaks havoc socially and morally: social codes crumble as the classes mix. All very un-British.
The love potion turns the village on. Sex suffuses the air. Odd pairings occur. As amorousness overcomes probity, Ian Besley as Sir Marmaduke Pointdextre and creamy contralto Sylvia Clarke as Lady Sangazure &endash; two pros if ever there were &endash; gave constant pleasure with their comic skills. Erring just on the right side of outright buffoonery, Besley lost all dignity with his spot-on head banging and 'grandad dancing', and he was pure Captain Mannering in his admonition of his son Alexis: 'You stupid boy.'
Alexis (Oliver John White), resplendent in purple velvet, gets the oh-so-irritating marijuana giggles, while, in a later twist, the vicar, Dr Daly (Philip Cox), a confirmed bachelor, in a hugely enjoyable performance, finds that desire has absolutely no sexual barriers.
Some amusingly updated liberties have been taken with the original libretto. Warding off the drug-fuelled advances of Lady Sangazure, John Wellington Wells invokes the class system, telling her to hate him because he drops his aitches, eats peas with a knife and &endash; a heinous crime &endash; lives in Milton Keynes. Emma Morwood as Aline, with her vibrant soprano, was sharp and sassy in Laura Ashley-inspired dress and hat. Claire Watkins, with her expressively smooth voice, was a bespectacled and shy Constance, who hopes the machinations of her mother, Mrs Partlet, sung by Susan Moore, will gain her the love of the vicar. Bass Gareth Jones was the notary. An early work, The Sorcererhas lost out in popularity to other works in the G & S canon. This sparkling production should ensure that it regains its place. A-star.
LIN WILKINSON
Newbury Today
