Gilbert and Sullivan comic operas are somewhat less frequently produced now then when I first encountered the whole repertoire in the 1960's and 1970's but occasionally a fresh production breathes new life into these most British of operas. Joseph Papp's Pirates of Penzance and Jonathan Miller's The Mikado successfully created exciting new versions of these best known titles. Sasha Regan's production which started at Union theatre and is currently on tour in U.K. takes the tale of the House of Lords and a group of fairies and seeks to reinvent the story. At a time of gender blind casting, she takes this to new extremes with an all male cast and sets this up with the pretext that they are schoolboys discovering the old script in an old theatre. In the beautiful grandeur of the Richmond Theatre which opened in 1899 ( just 17 years after the original Iolanthe opened) this pretext looks odd, rather cheap and the opening sequence of the cast entering through the auditorium with torches and discovering the libretto seemed overlong and laboured. It is never really clear what is gained by the all male cast and after a while the joke wears thin.
When we first meet the fairies in "Tripping Hither ,Tripping thither" the sight of a chorus of men dressed in female underwear tripping across the stage in a faux ballet is amusing and brings new meaning to their "fairy ring". It is intriguing that some of the Mark Smith choreography looks like partial sign language but it is not carried through. There are some original and creative ideas using step ladders, umbrellas and dressing room mirrors in the choreography but they just feel odd on the huge Richmond stage and it's glorious proscenium arch. The Victorian closet is the only major setting and cast members are frequently directed to come out of it.
