SULLIVAN & GILBERT, Sat. December 2 1978.

Cheam O.S. and St. Dunstan's Players combined for this evening's entertainment in Carshalton Hall. It was the same night as The Mikado was performed and broadcast from the Albert Hall which may be one reason for the poor attendance. It was in two parts: Gilbert without Sullivan, and then Sullivan without Gilbert. Part 1 consisted of staged performances of Eyes and No Eyes, and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, both produced by John Gilbert who also MC'd the evening. The cast of Eyes and No Eyes sang better than they acted, but the performance was highly acceptable. The text had been heavily cut. Florian Pascal's music is eminently forgettable, but as most of the songs are rather incidental to the drama anyway, there seems little reason why it could not be cut out and the piece played as a straight play. Gilbert's text is too good to be completely forgotten. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern was disappointing. Only Michael Reynolds as Hamlet seemed to have any clear idea of what he was doing, or to have any consciousness of the humour of Gilbert's text. The king and queen, for example, looked and sounded like a suburban couple conversing over the breakfast table in fancy dress. The second half consisted of a concert of rarelyheard Sullivan music some of it unjustly, some, one couldn't help feeling, very justly. "Long live Richard" (from The Foresters) is banal in the extreme. Also forgettable was the 1859 Romance for string quartette. High moments proved to be the part songs, "The Last Night of the year", "Oh, hush thee, my Babie" and the Duo Concertanto for Violoncello and Piano (1868). The cellist (Amanda Truelove) played, as an encore, a very charming little Idyll, which was only ever published, in a very obscure magazine. The other items were "Daydreams", "Morn, Happy Morn", "Chorus of Lake Spirits" (from King Arthur), "The Sisters" (1881), "Madrigal" (Haddon Hall), Trio and dance ("Musical maidens are we", Rose of Persia), "Golden Days" (1872), God shall wipe away all tears"(Light of the World), and "Plantaganesta" (Ivanhoe). MICHAEL WALTERS

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