Review: IOLANTHE, London Coliseum

If a revival is akin to colouring in someone else’s artwork, Cal McCrystal’s Iolanthe for the ENO does so with every shade under the sun.

When it premiered in 1882, this work from Gilbert and Sullivan was a new highpoint for the pair. It was their fourth consecutive hit, the first new theatre production in the world to be illuminated entirely with electric lights and it was during its debut run at the Savoy that Arthur Sullivan was knighted for services to music by Queen Victoria.

That Iolanthe follows the decidedly grim Peter Grimes in this year’s programme is perhaps no coincidence: both are emotional emetics, releasing torrents of unbridled joy and deep sadness respectively. The comic opera is a bawdy affair dressed in metaphysical clothing with fairies and lords entwined in a love story redolent of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The narrative barely holds up to close inspection but is sufficient to justify all manner of deliciously ridiculous happenings. So far, so G&S but the finest aspect of this relatively unknown work is how much scope it gives to McCrystal and renowned stage designer Paul Brown to produce a thing of wonder.

Opera is no stranger to tragedy (at least on stage) but it is heartbreaking to think that Brown, inventor of some memorably epic sets, died shortly before this production’s debut run in 2018. His Pelléas et Mélisande at Glyndebourne had flaming stairs, The Fairy Queen featured giant rutting rabbits and here he didn’t hold back: a unicorn, a horse, a flamingo, several sheep and even a pantomime cow join the cast in front of an immense floral display.

McCrystal marries this towering eyeful and the script’s cheeky bon mots with audacious comic and physical flourishes of his own. The topical jabs at Arts Council England and political figures like Nadine Dorries (seen banging on the door of the House of Lords until Boris Johnson carries her off) are spot on but tinged with sadness - will we ever see The Mikado and hear one of Richard Suart’s Little Lists at the Coliseum again?

There are chuckles aplenty though occasionally there's a sense that less is more. Perhaps forgivably, as one of this country’s most celebrated circus directors, McCrystal can’t resist pumping in as many sight gags and as much slapstick as he can. That the fourth wall gets broken more times than a Johnson promise is all part and parcel for an Iolanthe that throws caution (as well as many of opera’s unspoken rules) to the wind.

The highly-calibrated direction makes fantastic use of the main talent as well as giving the chorus some wonderfully free movement. John Savournin’s Lord Chancellor, Samantha Price’s Iolanthe, Ellie Laugharne’s Phyllis and Marcus Farnsworth’s Strephon are a supremely talented quartet who somehow manage to keep a straight face amidst this cavalcade of wonderfully chaotic comedy. Petra Massey (Spymonkey, Cirque du Soleil) is an exuberant Fleta with a million-dollar smile that is, if anything, at least as bright as this opera company’s immediate future.

Iolanthe continues at London Coliseum until 25 October.

Photo credit: Craig Fuller

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