Orpheus in the Underworld

I am not a jealous person, but I am envious of the talent inside the brain of the Director of this sparkling production, Anita Adams. She has taken, frankly, a rather old-fashioned operetta and devised a contemporary, hilarious piece of theatre, which had an amazed audience applauding her sheer audacity! Here she had exchanged the Ambrosian landscape on Mount Olympus for the board-room of an underwear factory, the innocent shepherds and shepherdesses for bored factory workers, making, dare I say it, grey underpants for the mass market - no wonder they were revolting! Leeds G&S took a bold decision to move away from their usual G&S operettas, for a change - and they have shown their fans that there are alternatives - I am no aficionado, but I did detect some similar melodies from Offenbach's pen to Arthur Sullivan's score, suiting this group splendidly. The score, under the excellent baton of Michael Williamson, was played to perfection by his orchestra - there had been no alterations, and as always, the experienced singers rose to the challenge. The principal players followed their director's lead by embracing the comedy - this is my kind of theatre!  The story continued with Pluto taking all the 'workers' and the 'gods' down to a colourful 'Hell' - here, all 'grey' was forbidden and now everyone was dressed in Vivienne Westwood outrageous style. I must congratulate the costume and make-up departments on their attention to detail, matching colours and styles - every member of the cast was characterised, a hard task. Behind the scenes, there were also signs of very hard work - the set was splendidly dressed with interesting props and good lighting. My only tiny niggle was lack of voice projection from the cast when set further back on the stage, but only in the dialogue.

I wish to once again congratulate all the principals on their energy and enthusiasm, so many to mention individually, but great team-work was at play here. Anita hadn't missed a trick in her direction, giving everyone on stage 'business' which did not detract from the main scene. Her interpretation of the famous 'Gallop' (or as we know it better, the Can-Can) was for me the icing on the cake - when the dancing 'gods' became exhausted, they re-entered the dance with 'cut-out' legs and proceeded to perform higher kicks and 'splits' - what a brilliant piece of theatre that was!

Some might say - 'well, follow that!' - but I have no doubt that this talented, hard-working group will rise to a new challenge - there are many wonderful scores out there which just need an update in the libretto - then, the sky's the limit - or another kind of Mount Olympus!  But now I've seen 'Hell' - pants it ain't!!

Sincere congratulations to you all! 

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