This was on the whole, an enjoyable performance, although the production, by Dick Roberts, was rather unimaginative. The peers were all very much underplayed - not at all the caricature figures I could have wished them to be. I could also have wished that they were wearing something more underneath their robes, since they appeared to be a lot of dirty old men when they "flashed" themselves at the audience on the final chord of the peer's chorus. Fleta was written out of the production, and her dialogue was distributed round the chorus. I rather liked the two "punk rock" fairies, if indeed that is what they were supposed to be. It is always a problem to turn the average amateur female chorus into anything remotely resembling fairies, but Putney managed reasonably well here. Clever costumes managed to disguise unfairylike figures, but makeup was not sufficiently clever to disguise the fact that (contrary to Gilbert's libretto) these fairies did grow old, and half of them had already done so. A chunk of dialogue immediately preceding Mountarrarat's song was cut. The section in Finale Act 1, between Strephon's "She is, has been my mother from my birth" and Phyllis's "Go trait'rous one" was also omitted, and this omission did not detract from the remaining music. The act 1 set was very colourful, but unfortunately the flats were not tall enough. The Act 2 set was very bleak and only just resembled the Houses of Parliament. All the soloists managed surprisingly well to fill a very large hall with sound and diction was generally good. The Fairy Queen (Jane Cooper) displayed a powerful contralto voice, but the part seemed to lie uncomfortably for her. At times I felt her presence was a little undignified for a Queen. "Oh foolish fay" was exceptionally well sung. It was announced at the beginning of the evening that Iolanthe (Tricia Robinson) was suffering from a serious throat infection. Her act 1 music was mimed to the singing of one of the chorus fairies. She spoke her act 2 music. Strephon (Bill Blenkinsop) and Phyllis (Billie Stephens) are both fine singing actors and their performances were outstanding. They were both convincing in their roles and their duet "None shall part us" was the high spot of the evening. The Lord Chancellor (Mike Cullinan), I thought was underplayed. His wig seemed to be constantly on the verge of coming off, and he did not make the most of his dialogue. The nightmare song was very well sung and the articulation was excellent in spite of the prestissimo tempo. Mike King and Dick Stockton gave adequate portrayals of Tolloller and Mountararat respectively, although the diction in Mountararat's dialogue was a little indistinct. In this production they adopted the names Cuthbert and Perrigrin. Their ages appeared to be such that they could not possibly have been boys together - but perhaps only Tolloller was. Private Willis (Bryan Davis) appeared to be "off duty" at the opening of Act 2. He had removed his bearskin, was smoking a cigarette and slouching on his rifle. This, together with some unnecessary production to his song (which Mr. Davis acted very well) was cleverly introduced to take our minds off his singing. He had a booming, resonant bass voice, which was a pity, since most of the notes he sang were either wrong, or flat. He forgot his words in the second verse of the song. Mercifully he was written out of the quartet. The orchestra was of a high standard, and apart from a rather stodgy opening to the overture, I liked all Keith Stent's tempi. JOHN BARRATT

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