For 22 years Jonathan Miller’s English National Opera production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Mikado has lorded it over the West End. But, in a plot twist worthy of G&S themselves, there are now two imperial Japans in Theatreland. The Carl Rosa Opera Company’s cherry-blossom-strewn production at the Gielgud comes with the stamp of authenticity; Miller’s production, back for its 13th run, junks the Oriental setting of Titipu altogether and gives us an Art Deco neverland of even greater pomposity than Gilbert may have ever imagined.
So is it time that this staging gracefully conceded the stage? Not if you’re judging by the affectionate cheers that greeted Dr Miller’s surprise curtain call (this revival is officially in the hands of his assistant, David Ritch), or the squeals of pleasure as Richard Suart’s Ko-Ko (the Lord High Executioner) consigned Derek Conway, Nigella Lawson, Facebook and even ENO’s disastrous production of Kismet to his infamous “Little List” for imminent elimination.
Suart knows this is his Big Moment, and perhaps he is overmilking what could altogether be a tighter and less self-satisfied show. At the Gielgud, our Ko-Ko – the upstart tailor turned imperial bigwig - is endearingly pathetic, a man who knows he’s surviving by the skin of his teeth. At ENO, Suart’s prancing pratfalls are much harder work. Do we really need his camp impersonations of Frankie Howerd and Laurence Olivier to add to his endless scuttlings across the stage in spats, tennis whites or a silk dressing-gown?
Then, again, perhaps the sheer odiousness of Suart’s performance is Miller’s point. There’s precious little room for human sympathy in this Mikado - and that’s why it will always have the drop on Carl Rosa’s kitschier spectacle. After all, what’s the fundamental point of G&S’s “topsy-turvy” world? Surely that everyone is lying through their teeth to get their own way. It’s a world of endlessly shifting morals where the gents’ chorus savvily remind us that “I am right and you are right and everything is quite correct”. Is this world’s beauty really “but a bubble”, as the coy chorus of schoolgirls asks? You bet, and these girls, lined up for loveless marriages of convenience, had better wise up soon.
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Even at its 13th revival, this staging preserves the sharp sting of that satire. It’s there in the arch simpering of Robert Murray’s Nanki-Poo and the knowing purr of Sarah Tynan’s limpidly sung Yum-Yum. It’s there in Richard Angas’s delightfully avuncular – and remarkably cruel – Mikado, and in the tragic vulnerability of Frances McCafferty’s Katisha, the one unambiguous victim of the “haughty lords” she rails so hopelessly against. It’s there, of course, in Sullivan’s delicious score, admirably conducted by Wyn Davies. And Suart, too? We laugh as he lies flat on his back, literally licking the Mikado’s boots to save his neck but there’s real desperation there as well.
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