Review: SASHA REGAN’S ALL-MALE PIRATES OF PENZANCE, Wilton’s Music Hall
Photo credit: Mark Senior
A mostly younger audience at Wilton’s appeared to be discovering Sasha Regan’s all-male Pirates of Penzance for the first time, but many of us in the audience were revisiting an old favourite. It’s a delight, as ever, and seems to come with extra nuances at a time when gender-fluid casting is no longer exceptional or even noteworthy. When the show originally opened in 2009, attitudes were very different.
Not that this production lives in the real world, of course; we are firmly in Gilbert’s topsy-turvydom and all the better for it. It’s a young cast and only David McKechnie has appeared in the production before, and repeats his engaging and very clearly enunciated Major-General – Gilbert’s patter songs are no problem for him.
Among the young cast, there are many professional debuts. As Mabel, resplendent in her pearls, Luke Garner-Greene sings very sweetly and looks the part too – it is a remarkably feminine performance without any excess of camp. Campery rules elsewhere, of course, and quite rightly too – it’s one of the joys of the production. Also making his debut is Tom Newland as an energetic and authoritative Pirate King, well matched by Cameron McAllister as a woebegone but ever hopeful Frederic.
One of the joys of Sasha Regan’s G&S productions has been the way in which the sometimes problematic contralto roles for older women have been reinterpreted. Ruth is played this time by Robert Wilkes, who gives us a confident portrayal of a woman who is an active agent in all that happens around her: it’s a subtle but valid development of the role.
Alongside Director Sasha Regan, the other creative responsible for the ongoing success of this production is choreographer Lizzi Gee. From the opening moments with pirates leaping towards the audience to the hilarious character choreography for the police, the movement in this production is a joy to behold. Newcomers will enjoy it but returners will also spot the small embellishments that have been added or changes made, but always with the aim being to celebrate G&S in a vastly entertaining way.
The hardworking musical director this time is Giannis Giannopoulos; his piano accompaniment allowing the unamplified voices to soar in the relatively confined quarters of this beautiful old venue, which was opened just twenty years before the first production of The Pirates of Penzance. And, as ever, this cast can really sing, whether as countertenors or not: the wall of sound they create with ‘Hail, Poetry’ is evidence of that.
Just one change does jar this time: the addition of video projections. In themselves, they are fine but they are not in tune with the overall aesthetic of this production. When a group of police can be suggested so successfully by drawn-on eyebrows, boots and moustaches on sticks, we don’t need to see a detailed projection of a sailing ship let alone a moving sea. We already believe they are pirates and police, we don’t need photo-realism in a broad brush portrayal.
Apart from that one comment, however, this is a glorious production which makes full use of Wilton’s Music Hall, with entrances through the audience, torch-lit maidens on all sides and the opportunity to see this landmark production at close quarters. Check piratesisback.com to see if the tour is coming near you. After fifteen years, The Pirates of Penzance is as good as ever and a very, very funny antidote to the more downbeat aspects of everyday life: don’t miss it!
**** Four stars
Reviewed by: Chris Abbott
