Iolanthe

This production was entertaining from start to finish. Indeed there was entertainment before the start, with several members of the orchestra, not to mention front-of-house staff, looking very fetching in fairy wings. The audience took their seats with the set visible - a mid-stage curtain showing a woodland glade. The curtain was, in fact, a gauze, so that when the orchestra started playing, the lights came up behind the curtain, waking a quartet of fairies, from Oakwood Academy of Dance, who, with the addition of an Imp, danced out the overture. Then the main chorus of fairies entered. Now the fairies are supposed to look no older than Strephon, Iolanthe’s son. A youthful chorus is something that few G&S societies can achieve - indeed, in the spirit of enjoying a hobby, excluding willing participants is not something to which we should aspire - thus the fairies had a broader range of ages than the script allows. Director Sarah Vandervelde took this head-on, sending up the fairy collective. The result was a hoot - there was a lot of visually funny stage business going on throughout the show without detracting at all from the quality of the music.  Indeed, Gilbert doesn’t take his fairies seriously: the chorus runs 'Tripping Hither, Tripping Thither, nobody knows why or wither'. So 'We are dainty little fairies' saw Fleta (the excellent Lucy Kelleher) stomping around a pair of Doc Marten’s. A little later she kissed a frog and was very disappointed that this had no effect.

The Lord Chancellor (Brian Morgan) and the peers (led by Brian Oliver and Mark Ward) were a suitably pompous lot and every bit as relevant to the national interest as their counterparts are today. This is one of the cases where Gilbert’s satire stands the test of time very well.

Despite having the title role, Iolanthe (Julie Gower) gets only a small share of the musical offerings.  I would also have liked to hear a lot more from Kirsty Parvel who sang well and made a very expressive Leila. No, it’s the Lord Chancellor and Peers who get the lion’s share of the songs, though for me the musical highlight of the evening was the duet 'None Shall Part Us' between the lovers, Phyllis (Rachel Matthews) and Strephon (Richard Moore) which was a treat.

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