The Mikado

Gilbert & Sullivan

Opera Della Luna

Lowry, Salford

May 8 - 10, 2025: 2 hrs 45 mins

Louise Crane (left) and cast members in Opera della Luna's original production of The Mikado. All pics: Opera della Luna, from 2003.

I liked this version of Gilbert and Sullivan’s poke at Victorian fascination with the Far East when it was new 20-plus years ago; I liked it when it came round again in 2014 – and I’ve enjoyed it on its return to Salford’s Lowry as part of Opera della Luna’s 30th anniversary.

It’s in the familiar format of all Jeff Clarke’s Opera della Luna adaptations: half a dozen or so singers taking all roles (they do the choruses themselves, too), a tiny orchestra plus piano (in sonically ingenious reconstructions of the original scoring, a bit like Schoenberg’s arrangements of Mahler, and often striking in their own right), and a complete re-think of the setting of the original story. One of the best was their pop at Ruddigore, which inventively kept the spirit of Gilbert’s satire.

For this Mikado, Clarke couldn’t change all the mildly chauvinistic references to Japanese customs, but was looking for a new concept. He found it in the costumes: in the 1880s, kimonos were all the rage and dazzlingly colourful, and when this show was being devised the inspiration was a Versace exhibition – sexy, sassy and witty, as he says. And after all, Ko-Ko is described in the text as a cheap tailor.

So there’s a mild disconnect between the crazy modernism of the visuals and the references to Japanese traditions in the text – but everything in G&S is topsy-turvy in one way or another, and the real butt of the jokes is Victorian pretension.

With choreography by Jenny Arnold, and design by Gabriella Csanyi-Wills, there’s lots of fun in the detail: Katisha got up a la Dynasty; topical references in the “Little List” and “Punishment fit the crime” songs; a change of wig for Yum-Yum (formerly blonde) to match the words of “Braid the raven hair”; neat take-offs of the so-called madrigal “Brightly dawns our wedding day”, and of the old D’Oyly Carte tradition of cliche-ridden dance steps and endless encores in “Here’s a pretty state of things”, and so on.

But this was the first night of a tour that’s soon off to Southern venues, and there was a bit of the feel of a Northern try-out. The only available production pictures are from years back, so we can’t show you this year’s cast, for one thing – except for Louise Crane, as Peep-Bo and Katisha, who’s been doing it from the start.

There’s one name to conjure with for old-time G&S devotees, and that’s Masterson – this time Kelli Ann Masterson, recently a hit at the Buxton G&S Festival, a very estimable Yum-Yum, and vocally the stand-out member of the troupe. Carl Sanderson makes a good fist of Pooh Bah; Lynsey Docherty is a bright Pitti Sing, and Robert Forrest a strong Nanki-Poo. Steve Watts gives us a Northern Pish-Tush in the opening tailors’ sweat-shop and a properly royal Mikado. Matthew Scott Clark is trying an unusual approach to Ko-Ko and needs to get fully run-in. The show is ably conducted by Michael Waldron.

More info and tickets here