Alistair McGowan must have impersonated plenty of royals in his time, but has he ever ascended to the Chrysanthemum Throne?
Now the West End debut of the Carl Rosa Company, in town for a season of Gilbert & Sullivan, has given him his chance, and the result is a celeb cameo in the very best sense. Part Prince Charles - he gives us a quick blast of the Windsor wheeze - part Wooster, with a little bit of Paxman thrown in for good measure, McGowan’s Mikado (pictured) is a capricious, conspiratorial and completely English creation. A shame we don’t get more of it.
Actually, it’s in McGowan’s nudge’n’wink show that, perversely, Peter Mulloy’s “authentic” production (the designs are a faithful reproduction of the 1885 originals) gets closest to what G&S is all about.
Yes, these pagodas and kimonos look beautiful. But, boy, they need pepping up: there isn’t enough zing to the ensembles, not enough crackle to the wordplay. By and large, that old business with the fans won’t pass for choreography, particularly when it’s obscuring and confusing the plot. The two lovers, Andrew Rees’s Nanki-Poo and Charlotte Page’s Yum-Yum, sing with metallic italics, and act with so many audible quote marks that you stop caring. The result, notwithstanding some spirited playing from the band (Martin Handley conducts), too often feels like a pageant, a series of nods to G&S gesture rather than a faithful celebration of their total irreverence.
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Old hands don’t necessarily mean stale lines. Fenton Gray, a cuddlier Ko-Ko than his daunting rival at the ENO, gives a lot of pleasure. For the record, his Little List made digs at both Peter Hain and Derek Conway, though I enjoyed his attacks on Bluetooth and BlackBerries more - “to think that all this useless junk/ was made here in Japan”. Bruce Graham’s Pooh-Bah is a model of craven, corpulent corruption. And after an underwhelming entrance, Nichola McAuliffe’s Katisha finds real pathos in this battleaxe’s lonely plight; by the end, we’re rooting for her. If you’re a G&S agnostic, keep well close to the three of them.
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