YEOMEN OF THE GUARD, St. Thomas's L.O.C. Stanley Hall, Norwood Junction, 11th May 1978

This performance was a good candidate for the worst thing I have ever seen. During the overture, two Yeomen stood on the stage, front of tabs in spots; and prior to the performance the auditorium was flanked with Yeomen. The orchestra were too many to fit into the tiny pit surrounded by a fixed baffle, and some were on the floor. They played the tattiest rendering of the Yeomen overture I have ever heard. The sets, credited to London Borough of Lambeth, were ineffectual. Phoebe (Cristine Griffith) was elderly, with a cracked, quavery voice and she sang as though her mouth was full of spittle. Shadbolt (James Hake) was unintelligible owing to his putting on a strong (?phoney) cockney accent. All 8 yeomen entered through the auditorium. The Second Yeoman (Les Rose) was very elderly, with no voice; immediately after he had finished his solo, the chorus fell to bits. Dame Carruthers (Pauline Rogers) had a peculiar voice production. She was a light mezzo with a hilarious Clara Butt gear-change to reach the bottom notes. She got out of time with the Yeomen in the final refrain of her song and reached the end before they did. Leonard (Vernon Wade-Brown) had stilted dialogue and cracked on his top notes. "Alas, I waver" was terrible. The three voices did not blend, and Phoebe kept striding through, off the note, Fairfax (Maurice Grant) was elderly and unromantic - a stilted pedant. He had a strident voice with peculiar pronunciation, pronouncing his Ts as Ds, for example. He had a tremolo. The Lieut looked splendid, stout and with a full grey beard and a hat with a feather, like a portrait of Sir William Cecil come to life. He spoke intelligently, but had no singing voice. He cut one of Point's lines, Peter Griffith was the actor's name. Point (Martin Pritchard) had a very adequate voice for that sort of part. He was young and he had a lively, sparkling approach. With good production he could be very good. Elsie (Beryl Jones) had a nice voice and her song would have been quite good if the orchestra had not mucked it up. Poor girl. The jostling of Point & Elsie on their entrance went on far too long, though that was the only specific comment I seem to have made on Keith Rotchell's non-production, "Were I thy bride" was not bad, but the encore was neither justified, nor asked for. Shadbolt's attempts to sing as well as speak in a cockney accent were not a success. The Denby Light Orchestra were unbelievably bad, and Dennis Baker seemed to be little more than a figurehead waving a baton for pure window-dressing. I have only seen this Society once before, years ago, when they did Monckton's A Country Girl. In G & S they are to be avoided at all costs, to my irritation they are doing The Rebel Maid next year, so I may have to stomach them to hear it. I left at the interval of Yeomen. MICHAEL WALTERS

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