No 5 -- June 1976 Edited by Michael Walters
WIMBLEDON L.O.S. The Mikado, Wimbledon Theatre. 12 May 1976
I had never seen this Society before; they apparently have a pretty high reputation, though this production did nothing to explain why. It was truly the dreariest experience I have had for a long time. I had gone quite prepared not to want to stay for the second act, and deliberated on whether to go to the Gods at 35p or splash out on a back stall at 90p. In the end I went to the stalls and started to regret it as soon as the Overture started. By Pish Tush's song I was beginning to wonder if it was even worth staying till the end of Act 1. In the end I did. The Conductor (Christopher Slater) had a delicate style of waving his arms (rather like a butterfly) and twiddling his fingers, but the only sound he managed to get out of the Orchestra was dull, pedantic, and punctuated by a series of dull thuds which I think were meant to be drumbeats. The costumes were gaudy, the set for Act 1 was a chocolate-boxy adaptation of the 1920s D'Oyly Carte set with an elaborate arch at the back and a quantity of drooping lilac. It had been around for some time and was shewing its age. I can't think why the third capacity audience applauded it. The production was by Leonard Osborn - an object lesson in demonstrating that a successful stage performer does not necessarily make a good producer. The cast & chorus went lethargically through a series of stereotyped meaningless gestures (which D'Oyly Carte had dropped years ago, including the "goat-bleating" preceding the "little-list" song - was this ever funny?) with an air of total non-comprehension as to why they were doing them. The Act ran for an hour and a quarter, without encores. The male chorus was the seediest, most unlikely, job-lot of second hand nobles I have ever seen, the female chorus the oldest and most decrepit collection of schoolgirls - one expects a few old ladies in an amateur company and the libretto does specify a chorus of both ladies and schoolgirls, so why companies insist on trying to make them all young is beyond me. But there was hardly a young one among them, and I am afraid I find the sight of a line of withered old ladies singing "schoolgirls we eighteen and under" rather pathetic. Nanki-Poo (Christopher Evans) had a pleasant voice and made some attempt to act, but he was hampered by a tinny-voiced Yum-Yum (Theresa Booth). The Ko-Ko was Peter Evans, who is also Chairman of the Society (!) He was about 60 years old, with a long pointed nose and receding forehead and chin, and he looked rather like a cross between Roy Hudd and Charles Hawtrey without the personality of either. He had neither voice nor any clear conception of the part. Pooh-Bah was played by Jeremy Page, who was a young man very badly made up to look old with tramlines on his face. He had a good bass-baritone voice and an intelligent approach to the part. With sensitive and sensible production he could be capable of better things. Peter Harrison was an elderly Pish-Tush with a pleasing voice and a bored Etonian air. He forgot his lines twice and managed to make the fact excessively obvious. Pitti-Sing (Ann Tugwell) had a rather common voice and unpleasant open vowels. Katisha (Norma Evans) was dressed in shocking-pink and gold lamé with a superb wig and make-up. She really did look an old harridan and sang the part with richness and feeling though she missed the pathos of "the hour of gladness". This is the sort of production which could put a novice off G&S for ever.
After writing this I read the report by the Surrey Comet's music critic, Hilton Timms, who had a rather different impression. "Leonard Osborn .... had poured every last milligram of energy, his own and the company's, into making this Mikado a crackling, full-blooded, thoroughly efficient affair. It was noticeable in the smallest detail, like the way the chorus was kept sprightly with a never-still sequence of gesture and physical comment on the action. He was served by an all-round excellent cast not the least of whose distinctions was an exemplary clarity of diction and rapport with Gilbert's words. I have seldom seen an amateur G&S production in which the wit and nuances were so readily accessible. Jeremy Page's Pooh-Bah was marginally the pace-setter in this respect - a finely delivered performance. Christopher Evans & Theresa Booth were a stylish pair of lovers and Peter Evans' Ko-Ko and Norma Evans' Katisha extracted maximum relish from their characterisations without straying into excess. Christopher Slater conducted a well-founded and alert orchestra." No mention of the title role, so perhaps he didn't stay for Act 2 either!
MICHAEL WALTERS
Web page created 19 February 1999