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Show: Express G&S
Society: Charles Court Opera
Venue: Wilton’s Music Hall, 1 Graces Alley, London E1 8JB
Credits: Written by John Savournin, after Gilbert, with new lyrics by David Eaton.
Type: Sardines
Author: Susan Elkin
Performance Date: 15/08/2023
Express G&S
Susan Elkin | 17 Aug 2023 17:26pm
Photo: Bill Knight
You don’t have to know your G&S to enjoy this sparky show but you’ll get more of the jokes if you do. I chuckled, for instance, at the reference to Thespis whose score is lost and to the carpet quarrel line. These are the sort of things that G&S buffs know about – and I’ve been in love with this stuff since I first saw The Mikado when I was five.
The concept is Agatha Christie meets WS Gilbert and it grew, apparently, from an attempt to devise something socially distanced during lockdown. A detective named Philippe Pierrot (Mathew Kellet) with little black tashes and a ridiculous French, not Belgian, accent is on an old fashioned express train travelling through England, He is supported by the guard, Reggie (Matthew Siveter) and the trolley lady, Bridget (Catrine Kirkman). Then her trolley, characterised by its doilies is mysteriously wrecked and Philippe has to solve the mystery of the broken doily cart – get it? – on which he finds clues such as a peer’s coronet, a jester’s stick and a long silver hair.
The 75 minute show, modelled on popular one Victorian act-ers such as Trial by Jury and Cox and Box, then serves up songs from, and references to, every opera G&S wrote with Siveter and Kirkman becoming different characters. Often the words are re-written and there’s a clever version of Koko’s little list song, sung by Siveter – good) reworked as an account of the train’s manifest. Most of Gilbert’s outrageous characters are on board including “a protoplasmic globule who’s really quite a bore” along “The Duke of Plaza Tor.” The linking dialogue is sparklingly clever too as we nip from one show to another – all so familiar but gloriously mixed up. The entire oevre, including The Grand Duke, is lurking somewhere in the melange.
Some of the songs are more or less straight. Kirkman’s “The Sun Who’s Rays” is sing with immaculate clarity. So is Kellet’s nightmare song when he can’t sleep on the train. Kirkman’s Buttercup song though, in which she extols the goodies on her trolley, has nippy, witty new words including references to Sally Lunns and pork pies from The Sorcerer.
Meanwhile David Eaton, who’s doing a fine job on piano and I admired his semi-Shakespearian prologue, gives us many clues and signals which G&S aficionados will pick up immediately. There’s a storm, for example – shaking carriage and flashing lights – and of course we hear those descending minor scales from Ruddigore beginning quietly under the dialogue before we get “When the Night Wind Howls” with the three verses split between the three actors.
Inevitably, there has been a lot of musical arrangement. Some keys have been changed and it’s fun to see a woman do a take on “A Policeman’s Lot is Not a Happy One”. Occasionally the balance is awry, though, and from row D, at least, Kirkman was sometimes overpowered by two very strong male voices in trios.
This is a show which exudes joie de vivre. All three performers are totally of top of what they’re doing and Kirkman, in particular is splendidly versatile. All three have a knack for casting knowing looks at the audience. You’ll come out smiling.