The Pirates of Penzance

At the recent NODA AGM and Awards Event last Sunday there was some gentle leg-pulling of the G&S Societies, the implication being that G&S is some arcane piece of musical history that no longer has relevance to a modern audience. I noted with secret satisfaction that in one district The Sorceror won a Best Musical award; that raised a small cheer from the G&S aficionados and wiped the smile off the faces of the modern show fans. But it did set me thinking about my own attitudes to the G&S genre and whether those happy few who still enjoy a show like Trinity’s Pirates are doing so because they like the music, the timeless comedy, the clever lyrics or whether their enjoyment is a sub-conscious response to the nostalgic familiarity of what they grew up with.  Lets face it, if you are over sixty years of age (which I suspect all, no, most, no, some, in the Trinity audience were!) and your parents took you to see local amateur shows you probably didn’t see Rodgers & Hammerstein too often. G&S, White Horse Inn, The Merry Widow, perhaps The Desert Song and the like were the staples back in the 1960s and 70s.

It was only in the 1980s and 1990s that G&S was edged out by the big Broadway Musicals licensed to amateurs. Now that so many modern musicals seem to be pushed through the Broadway/West End/professional tour conveyor belt the availability to amateurs of all but the longest-running shows may be relatively soon after the professional milking has stopped.  The unintended consequence is that a generation, perhaps two generations, of amateur theatre-goers has no first hand experience of G&S and would no more buy a ticket than buy an iPhone 3. This spills over into what amateur performers actually perform and so the art of learning to read music, picking up harmonies, projecting without a microphone and being heard at the back of the theatre, is perhaps being lost.

Enter Trinity Methodists, who are holding back the tide of ignorance. Not only did they not need microphones but they could be heard over a 15 piece orchestra; they could project their dialogue to the back of a 500-seater theatre; they updated the setting to a Night at The Museum; they rewrote the words to make sense in the new context and even included clever lyrics about Plebgate and Theresa May.  The single set was dramatic and new, incorporating as it did entrances from packing cases, a sarcophagus and the Cleaners store cupboard.  The ladies costumes were sumptuous, only occasionally minimal (Lady Godiva) and gave each one an historical character that could be carried over to some extent to the interactions with the men. The battle between swords and loo brushes was less decisive than I would have thought and the dialogue had been tweaked so that it made sense in its new setting. Admittedly all, no most, no some, of the cast were on the wrong side of forty but that is why the revised setting made sense.

Those who should have been the right side of forty, Frederic and Mabel, were not only the right age for the roles but had fantastic voices and stage presence as well. Jessica Edom-Carey’s voice, as Mabel, appeared to be effortless, soaring up to the top notes with no loss of quality. Theo Perry, as Frederic, was a baritone, rather than a tenor that the vocal score normally demands but his strong technique and timbre brought to the role a musical muscularity that we don’t usually hear. He also had an endearing diffidence that I found suited the part rather well.  Ruth (Janet Moore), the Pirate King (David Raynor) and the Sergeant of Police (Derek Lee) were all so at ease with their characters, while Mick Wilson as Major-General Stanley brought an experienced nuance to his role, so much so that you kept on wanting more. The smaller parts also offered opportunity to develop some characterization and I think I detected a hint of Jack Sparrow in Joe Gray’s portrayal of Samuel.

Trinity’s Pirates was a hugely enjoyable show and a fitting celebration of Trinity’s 50th Anniversary. I do hope that the director, Tony Brett, and the musical director, Anton Archer, will continue to adapt and update the G&S repertoire to appeal to the lost generations. Congratulations and Happy Anniversary!

© NODA CIO. All rights reserved.