Iolanthe

Last November’s Union, Southwark, revival of Iolanthe has now moved east into Wilton’s, and it’s another humdinger from director Sasha Regan and her all-male company, with superb musical direction (and playing) by Christopher Mundy at his grand piano.

The eerie, enchanted atmosphere of Wilton’s is even more suited to this production than it was to its all-male Gilbert and Sullivan predecessor, The Pirates of Penzance; for Regan’s big idea is to have the fairies and the House of Lords animated by the one bunch of public school boys tumbling out of the wardrobe in improvised gossamer wings and corsets, or else in dressing gowns and top hats.

It’s as though the old theatre comes alive in the spirit of invention, and after-dark improvisation. The gallery echoes with distant choruses, entrances are made through the audience, the cast rush hither and thither like the sprites in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, or Lord Snooty and his Pals, and sometimes both.

And how pertinent do you want your musical comedy to be? Poor little half-fairy Strephon (Louis Maskell) is condemned to be both a Liberal and a Conservative in the upper house while seeking to marry the Lord Chancellor’s ward of court, Phyllis (Alan Richardson).

Personal destiny mingles with political satire: Strephon’s mother, the fairy Iolanthe (Christopher Finn), was banished for marrying a mortal. There’s no resolution possible until the Lords admit that fairies can mingle freely, and carnally, among them, and that legislative havoc can be replaced by an acceptance of change and logic in the laws.

There’s no better, more gracefully conceived plot in the whole G&S canon, and the score is certainly one of the very best, with rousing marches and anthems, beautiful duets and some particularly fine numbers for the Lord Chancellor and the Fairy Queen.

As the first, Shaun McCourt doesn’t try too hard to be old or funny, and gets the words out admirably, especially in his sleep-deprivation patter number; and as the second, Alex Weatherhill is simply magnificent as a restrained contralto in furs and coronet.

Weatherill sets the tone: as in the Union’s Pirates, there’s nothing camp or “Hinge and Bracket” about this, and the chorus of fairies and lords is superbly drilled in Mark Smith’s witty choreography, and all the funnier for being so.

They all sing in splendid falsetto, as well as their own “man” voices. Matthew James Willis catches the ear, especially, as Lord Tolloller, and Raymond Tait is hilarious as Private Willis (“When all night long a chap remains”) in a kilt and sporran.