IOLANTHE
Wilton’s Music Hall
★★★★★
“there is something profoundly restorative about surrendering to such unashamed silliness”
What fun! Gilbert and Sullivan’s satirical masterpiece has lost none of its bite. Charles Court Opera’s glorious revival of Iolanthe at Wilton’s Music Hall proves that lampooning the House of Lords as a collection of mediocre chancers is as fresh, accurate and necessary today as it was in 1882. This is a triumph. It is riotously funny, musically accomplished, and politically sharp.
The plot concerns Strephon (Matthew Palmer), a half-fairy parliamentary groundsman in love with Phyllis (Llio Evans), a ward of Chancery. When the Lord Chancellor (Matthew Kellett) and the entire House of Peers also fall for Phyllis, the fairies intervene with chaotic results. The absurdity is the point, putting the lie to the establishment’s pomposity. Gilbert’s libretto skewers the sheer ridiculousness of hereditary power with a precision that remains devastatingly accurate. By contrast, the moving tenderness of the love songs, both between the romantic couple and between mother and son, shows what Gilbert and Sullivan considered important. The costumes, designed by Molly Fraser, could walk straight from the Wilton’s stage into the Lords’ chamber today.
John Savournin’s direction, revived by James Hurley, balances comedy with genuine warmth, whilst David Eaton’s musical direction draws sparkling performances from the Charles Court Opera Chamber Orchestra. The standout musical performances come from George Ireland on keyboard and Tim Taylorson on flute. They deliver Sullivan’s score, from the ethereal fairy music to the bombastic march of the peers, with both precision and joy.
The cast is uniformly excellent, but the standout performance comes from Catrine Kirkman as Lady Mountararat. In a clever gender-flip of the traditionally male role, Kirkman delivers a magnificent creation somewhere between Margaret Thatcher and Lady Hale: all imperious authority, withering disdain, and immaculate comic timing. Matthew Kellett as the Lord Chancellor delivers a tour de force of patter and pathos in his “Nightmare Song”. Eleanor O’Driscoll is a touching Iolanthe and Meriel Cunningham commands the stage as the Fairy Queen with regal authority.
Molly Fraser’s costume and set design beautifully suits Wilton’s atmospheric Victorian interior. Ben Pickersgill’s lighting transforms the space from fairy glade to parliamentary chamber with elegant simplicity, whilst Merry Holden’s choreography makes the most of a limited cast on a small stage.
This is clearly a production on a modest budget. The chorus and orchestra are stripped down to the bone, yet this constraint becomes a virtue, bringing clarity and intimacy to Sullivan’s orchestrations. Such limitations make the triumph all the more remarkable.
Gilbert and Sullivan is not currently fashionable, but perhaps it’s just what we need. In our era with unprecedented levels of anxiety and depression, there is something profoundly restorative about surrendering to such unashamed silliness. It is impossible to watch Iolanthe without cheering up.
With the upper chamber still stuffed with cronies and hereditary hangers-on, Gilbert’s century-old satire feels not like a museum piece but a call to arms. Unmissable.
IOLANTHE
Wilton’s Music Hall
Reviewed on 19th February 2026
by Elizabeth Botsford
Photography by Craig Fuller
