As a fan of Gilbert and Sullivan, I watched this live performance and found it very refreshingly entertaining. It is not for "purists" however, there is a lot of added dialogue some of which is very smutty, the characters' personalities are changed Sir Joseph in particular and the orchestra is more a synthesised small band.
I did love this production's energy, it is never dull and notice how the chorus never stop moving, I loved the refreshingly camp choreography(such as Dick and the Captain under the cloak and especially Sir Jospeh's leg movements), I did like how different and nifty the arrangements were and I loved the hilarious dialogue especially the Return of the Dead-eye quote, Dick's digs at the orchestra and conductor and Sir Joseph's interaction with Dick about his name.
The story may be standard perhaps, but as always with G&S the music is amazing, with memorable melodies and witty and droll lyrics. Costumes and sets wise, this production also scores highly, the idea of the revolving ship set was very clever and apart from Dick's the costumes look great and stick to the time they were set in.
The performers do give it their all, the male chorus and the three ladies who strongly reminded me of the Andrews sisters are superb, and David Gould has a dashing presence and a very mellow bass baritone voice. Helen Donaldson and Simon Gallagher sing wonderfully too, and Jon English has superb comic timing. The scene stealers are Drew Forsythe as a Sir Joseph that is a criss-cross between Toad, Mr Bean and Nosferatu and how he sang all those words AND did those very funny leg movements as well amazes me, and Rita Te Wiata, trust me after seeing this production you will never find a Buttercup this raunchy.
Overall, maybe not for all, but I thought it was a lot of fun. 10/10 Bethany Cox
