HMS PINAFORE

Opera della Luna at the Civic Theatre

03.10.10

Opera della Luna's flagship success sailed back into the Civic last Sunday, to the cheers and whistles of the happy throng on shore.

A relatively traditional production of the G&S classic, it starts with an all-hands-on-deck overture, with drum, pipe, sheets, sails setting the nautical scene. The Lass Who Loved A Sailor was sung by Rhona McKail with a rich vocal tone; her Ralph, a common tar, by Trevor Jary. But its the character roles that hog the limelight here: Ian Belsey's pompous Captain, Louise Crane's perfect Buttercup, Carrie Ellis's subtly comedic Hebe, and Philip Cox's diminutive First Lord – every word crisp, every movement meaningful, hilarious in his barely suppressed desire to show Ralph the finer points of the hornpipe. And double delight from Graham Hoadly, as the grotesque Dick and Sir Joseph's singular Aunt, possibly from Brazil.

Some clever touches from director Jeff Clarke: the 6d sheet music for Oh Joy, Oh Rapture, and the opening of the second act, with a solo fiddle [Rachel Davies], Corcoran's pungent Navy Mixture, and his Fair Moon, a perfect parlour ballad.

The art of the encore was exhibited in Never Mind the Why and Wherefore, with Maestro Clarke spurring his forces on to ever more frenzied tempi.

HMS PINAFORE

Opera della Luna at the Civic Theatre

25.10.01

Baldrick and Lady Bracknell in one evening ? A chance not given to many actors, but seized gleefully by Graham Hoadly in Opera della Luna’s sparkling pocket Pinafore at the Civic last week.

Eight singers and five musicians worked with enthusiasm and panache to give us the essence of G&S - doubling Deadeye with a formidable Aunt was just one ingenious example of making a virtue of necessity - I also enjoyed the Overture sequence, and the exquisitely Victorian opening to Act II, leading into the Captain’s equally Victorian ballad.

Ian Belsey was the middle class captain, with Joseph Shovelton looking and sounding just right as the patriotic pleb. Sarah Ryan’s pure, if slight, soprano was well suited to Josephine, and Louise Crane made a strong bumboat woman. The reliable David Timson gave a hilarious First Lord, true to tradition and relishing every word.

Not all conventions were ignored - the trio, with its encores, was only slightly sent up - but Jeff Clarke’s stripped-down version, which was first launched on the QE2, made the most of the ridiculous class-ridden snobberies behind Gilbert’s original libretto, whilst preserving the period charms of Sullivan’s music.