REVIEW

HMS PINAFORE

Theatre Royal Bath

Until Saturday, June 4

SO, two questions came to mind on the way to see Sasha Regan’s all male production of Gilbert & Sullivan’s HMS Pinafore.

One - why an all male production? And two - will it be very camp?

The answers are: one - probably because a traditionally gendered Pinafore was considered insufficiently exciting (which is, sadly, true) and (2) yes, very.

But the Church of Camp has many houses and this is the one that contains It Ain’t ‘alf Hot Mum and Frankie Howerd. Pinafore is not as closeted as those examples - there’s a post-civil partnership era easiness with gay iconography (the gym muscles and the white pants) but still, it’s a gay aesthetic paraded as funny campness for the straights.

The idea seems to be that the crew of the Pinafore put the show on for their own amusement (Buttercup delivers her opening and closing lines as a man), the sailors taking on the female roles out of necessity, although with an evident relish that would have rendered Sgt Major (“bunch of poofs”) Willliams apoplectic with rage.

It is, I think, true to say that this production definitely isn’t any kind of take on gay relationships in the Victorian navy.

Musically, this approach does present some problems: skillful as the singers are, a falsetto male just doesn’t deliver the power and tone of an actual soprano and so some of Sullivan’s melodies lose their soar and exhilaration. When the men sing in their own register, though, there are plenty of satisfying musical moments.

The dances and ‘business’ are lots of fun. The best sight gag of the evening for me was during the cod-Jingoistic anthem He is an Englishman when five sailors mimic the tableau of evolution: from the slope-headed, knuckle-dragging foreigner to the fully evolved Englishman. A moment for UKIP supporters to savour, surely.

The show is entertaining, light-hearted and slick and, certainly, a camp Gilbert & Sullivan is a welcome new take on the canon.

There is, surely, something innately pleasing in seeing those two bewhiskered old patriarchs affectionately being made to zhoosh it up (In the Navy). BARRY ANDREWS