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Pinafore!

Review

Note the exclamation mark in the title.

It says: ‘Hey, this is a bit of a lark’.

And so it is.

HumDrum AmDram’s adaptation of HMS Pinafore is nothing if not jolly and inventive.

It wittily heightens the element of self-parody in the original Gilbert and Sullivan and it bursts with bright choreographic ideas and mostly teems with updated energy.

Director James George sees to that by also leading the sailors’ chorus as the boatswain.

But James Cross’s wholesale musical reshaping is more questionable. Whereas Hot Mikado effectively creates a new work out of G&S by transporting them into a new era with its own distinctive musical style, Pinafore! veers crazily between echoes of West Side Story and a Morris-dance accompaniment for a patter-song.

And the score is based on one tiresomely repeated rhythm.

A cynic would suggest HumDrum have abandoned Sullivan simply because they lack sufficient singers of strong character to do him justice, but Georgia Swift is a secure Josephine, firmly projected and lustrous of tone, although her dialogue needs to be clearer.

Sheila Elsdon also excels as a hip-swinging Hebe and Jonathan Fost shows a pleasing tone as Ralph.

Mike Allen – Portsmouth News – Wednesday 4 July 2000