Cast: The Rt. Hon. Sir Joseph Porter - Alan Coles Captain Corcoran - Lance Moir Ralph Rackstraw - Peter MacKay Dick Deadeye - Dennis Carter Bill Bobstay - Mike Dunn Bob Becket - Harold Mead Josephine - Rachel Phillips Cousin Hebe - Lynda Coles Mrs. Cripps (Little Buttercup) - Ros Broad
G&S's H.M.S Pinafore Review by Stephen Turnbull Bishop's Lydeard, Saturday 29th March 2025
Somerset Opera, directed by Sarah Helsby Hughes. Musical Director Sam Baker. Village Hall, Bishop’s Lydeard, 29 March 2025.
Declaration of Interest: The director and I have been friends for many years and we have worked together.
It’s a slightly odd feeling to go to a place you have been visiting for years, but for a completely different purpose. I have been going to Bishop’s Lydeard for coming up to four decades in order to ride on the West Somerset Railway, 20-odd miles of steam trains between Bishop’s Lydeard and Minehead. But tonight I was looking for the Village Hall and G&S.
First indications were certainly good. The car park was full and there was a queue at the door for tickets. Indeed, the hall was packed and it looked as if all seats had been sold. This was the final performance of a seven-date tour which had visited two churches, two theatres and three village halls around Somerset. Creating a production that will work well in such a variety of venues is challenging, but the simple set of a deck with rigging upstage, a rail downstage and a few boxes and bits and pieces about the place, filled the Bishop’s Lydeard stage nicely and, I imagine, would have adapted well to larger ones.
Sarah Helsby Hughes had altered the period of Pinafore to the turn of the nineteenth century, and explained her rationale in a very helpful programme note. In Nelson’s time, the Navy was much less disciplined that it became, allowing the crew to be dressed less uniformly and eliminating a lot of rather clichéd traditional business. So no mops, no buckets, no deck-scrubbing, hardly any saluting. Sarah also explained that the presence of women on board ship, and even in the crew, was much less unusual than we might have expected. This enabled a few women to bolster the male chorus as sailors, and a few more to be on stage for the opening sequence. It was a little odd to hear female voices in the opening chorus, but dramatically speaking, it worked very well.
The company was twenty strong, and fitted nicely onto the smallish stage.They would not have been lost on a larger one. There was some excellent choral singing, notably in the Act I finale, which had real fire and commitment. There were some fine principals, notably Rachel Phillips as Josephine, who sang with power, clarity and emotion. She can act, too. Buttercup was in the gifted and safe hands of Ros Broad, who as Rosalind Griffiths played a range of small parts for D’Oyly Carte in the mid-1970s. It was good to hear a Buttercup who did not affect a heavy Mummerset accent. Among the men, Alan Coles, as Sir Joseph, had a good bass-baritone voice and played the part rather laid back. I couldn’t get out of my mind the idea that he looked like Richard (Victor Meldrew) Wilson, but that was probably just me. His Hebe was his wife Lynda, who looked regal. Lance Moir (Corcoran) and Peter McKay (Rackstraw) did well, with good voices and presence. I liked a lovely little touch right at the end: when Corcoran and Rackstraw returned in their new rank, they were both in shirtsleeves, and simply exchanged hats. Deadeye (Dennis Carter), with a long facial scar and a bit of a limp, again avoided cliché. He had an actual cat - a stuffed one, of course: live cats do not take direction well.
MD Sam Baker accompanied from the piano, with contributions in several numbers from flautist Jeannette Owen, plus a little bit of percussion here and there. Even a single instrument can add so much additional texture to the accompaniment. Tempi here and there were a fraction slower than might have been expected, but the performance flowed well and did not drag. Indeed, I didn’t look at my watch once during the first act.
Collectors of arcana will be interested to know that the original finale playout was used (a few bars longer than the familiar one). And what a delight to get through a performance of Pinafore without any encores of ‘Never mind the why and wherefore’. In short, a thoroughly enjoyable, committed performance that avoided cliché and had something new to say about an old favourite. Congratulations to everyone involved.
