The Pirates of Penzance, Coliseum, London - review

Back in 1999 film director Mike Leigh revealed his passion for Gilbert and Sullivan in the biopic Topsy-Turvy. After that he maintained that he was not interested in directing their operettas on stage, but such vows are made to be broken. English National Opera's new Pirates of Penzance marks Leigh's debut as an opera director.

Whatever else one might say about this production, it is certainly not topsy-turvy. One of the accusations against ENO is that its commitment to cutting-edge theatre has alienated the trusty old audience that used to turn up in coach loads for G&S, Offenbach and Lehar. For them, Leigh's Pirates of Penzance offers a return to the safety of tradition.

What we get is the very model of an un-modern G&S. With his affection for the style, Leigh does no violence, ventures no updating, sheds no new light. The trendily minimalist set designs by Alison Chitty suggest we are looking through an onshore telescope at the pirates' ship. Otherwise, the staging fits the period. The girls look perfect Victorian maidens in pastel-coloured silks. The police are a truncheon-bearing band of bumbling bobbies. Whatever satire there may have been in 1879 now has the bite of great-grandpa without his dentures. Everything feels quaint, rather flat, comfortably English.

Yet again, ENO fields a cast that has no weaknesses (so much for a company that is supposed to be on the rocks). Andrew Shore rattles unintelligibly through the Major-General's patter at tongue-twister speed, but is brilliantly lucid and in character everywhere else. Joshua Bloom makes an imposing Pirate King. Claudia Boyle, sporting high E's, and Robert Murray duet sweetly as Mabel and Frederic. In the police chorus Jonathan Lemalu is good at PC Plod deadpan humour and is accompanied neatly by conductor David Parry and the ENO orchestra. The choruses sparkle.

How does this "most absurdly whimsical" G&S entertainment come across today? With only the occasional, halfhearted smile on my lips, I sat bemused that grown men and women in the 21st century would want to find time for a piece as insipid and musty as this feels here. Around me, the audience laughed, chortled, cheered.

eno.org

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