IOLANTHE, Vale G & S Society, Victoria Ha11, Tring, Tue 9th May 1978.

This proved to be a "not at all bad" provincial production of Iolanthe, very acceptable for what it was, and by the end of the run (this was the opening night) they would no doubt have known it. The orchestra included my friend Robin Williamson, viola (son of the ornithologist Kenneth Williamson). The overture was good, a fine beefy sound, though there were a few mishaps. The opening chorus was very fast. Celia and Leila (Jill Lewis & Jenny Waller) had good voices, but the MD (Paul Banks) took the music too fast for them to be able to make the words mean anything. Producer Stewart Collins did his best with the postage stamp stage, which inevitable looked horribly crowded; the fairies were in dark green which made them look like nereids, and they constantly waved scarves about for no obvious reason. The Fairy Queen & Iolanthe, who were in white, did look more like fairies. Strephon and Phyllis were dressed as Dresden figurines, the former was all hands (to match the fairies' scarves?) the Peers entered through the auditorium, and there were peculiar and un-Peer like moves during the chorus. The orchestra came to brief here, and in the Lord Chancellor's entry fugue. The music speeded up after the fugue and the LC's song was taken at a great lick (a la Charles H. Workman) so that the words were gabbled - the trouble was that Workman could do it, this LC (David Clarke) couldn't. The LC was a terrible "goon", a typical busy actor, with cascades of totally meaningless gestures. There were several nice touches, Lord Mountararat did his minus-8 calculations on an abacus; and when the three fairies sang their threats "When next your houses” they each in turn made a fairy gesture which froze in turn each of the three peers. At the end of the act, during the Fairy Queen's monologue, the fairies marched round with placards bearing slogans, one of which was "I'm only here for a Peer". The singing was on the whole of a high standard, I particularly enjoyed Paul Bridle's subtly sung Mountararat. Unfortunately I couldn't stay for the second act to hear Willis, I had just time to catch my train. MICHAEL WALTERS

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