The Oxford University Gilbert & Sullivan Society weekly email is a guilty pleasure of mine. Though yet to attend a single meeting, the regular dose of comic opera silliness – the cocktail of one part innuendo to two parts gin – on which their society apparently subsists has long brightened my inbox. So the opportunity to see the group in action, at Monday’s previewed performance of Iolanthe, was not one that I would willingly miss.
Excitingly, what I discovered in the Corpus Christi auditorium was not simply a dramatic society brought together by Mother’s Ruin and fairly niche Victorian satire but an eager collection of immensely talented actors and singers preparing for a genuinely hilarious production.
For background, Iolanthe is a raucous comic opera satirising the House of Lords through the medium of fairy mischief and sexual frustration – calamities which doubtless touch us all.
It is brilliant.
Under the direction of Zoe Firth – a woman almost visibly bubbling over with enthusiasm – I was shown eight or so numbers from various sections of the show, each one alive with dynamic choreography and excellent choral performances. The standard of singing in Iolanthe is near to faultless, with each of the leading roles well cast, and performed with satisfying individuality: the Lord Chancellor (Will Momsett) cuts a pompous but quivering figure, while the Fairy Queen (Emilia Carslaw) balances the fearsome and lovelorn facets of her character with ease.
Scenes involving the fairy troupe are demure and ridiculous in equal measure, while the chorus of peers are a lecherous, bureaucratic delight; no joke about the impossibility of a House of Lords selected by ‘brains’ is likely to pass without winks and nods. The Earl of Mountararat (Fergus Butler-Gallie) is particularly entertaining during these political scenes, blustering through with all the ostentation of a blue-blooded Brian Blessed.
In terms of staging and costumes, the society president, Sophy Tuck, informed me that there will be “a full roof screen” for the backdrop during the run and that the pews and aisles of St John the Evangelist’s will be employed in performance, suggesting that the audience themselves may become peers in the Lords’ chamber. While the full wardrobe of costumes was not due until a later rehearsal, if the bright, flowing ensembles worn on Monday by Phyllis (Chloe Fairbanks) and the Fairy Queen are any indication of quality, then the final result will be stunning.
Even as we shuffled out into post-preview rain the cast’s energy was impossible to dampen – surrounded by a mish-mash of bizarre dialogue about “men with mothers too young for them”, as well as arias on frogs and “good Queen Bess”, I couldn’t help but wish I’d been able to see the whole thing.
If you enjoy cheerful bureaucracy, giggling at naughty words, ‘”very susceptible chancellors”, and/or genuinely first-rate vocal talent then Iolanthe is not a show to miss this 8th Week.
