★★★★

“A new and mostly fresh-faced cast give their all to this hugely enjoyable show”

At the highpoint of the Victorian era, WS Gilbert and Sir Arthur Sullivan collaborated on 14 hugely successful comic operas, thanks to their being brought together by Richard D’Oyly Carte at the Savoy Theatre. Sullivan wrote the music and Gilbert the words. The duo’s gift for catchy tunes and clever and witty lyrics won them huge success.

HMS Pinafore, The Mikado and The Pirates of Penzance have long been out of copyright and remain firm favourites for amateur companies around the world. So far, so familiar. But what happens when you freshen up these old warhorses and stage them with an all-male cast?

Since 2009 London-based director Sasha Regan has been doing just that, first at the Union Theatre, which she founded, and subsequently on tour around the country and to Australia. When asked why an all-male cast, she once said she loves their innocence. “Like a bunch of fresh-faced schoolboys, they have an energy that is infectious”. That fizzing energy rocked Wilton’s Music Hall last night.

A new and mostly fresh-faced cast give their all to this hugely enjoyable show, injecting much delightful scampering campery into the already irreverent old story. David McKechnie (the very model of a modern Major-General) is the only cast member to have appeared in Sasha Regan’s show before and his version of the most famous patter song (think the original rap) is a tour de force.

Thanks to the direction and some ingenious and ultra-precise and always enchanting choreography by Lizzi Gee, the cast occupy the entire theatre most enjoyably. From the opening scene where the troupe of white clad performers bowl energetically on to the stage through the auditorium, their movement is a delight.

Amongst the best known numbers in the show are ‘When a felon’s not engaged in his employment’ (a Policeman’s lot is not a happy one) – sung with great gusto by a knee-trembling chorus of Policemen, and ‘Hail poetry’ a beautiful rendition of this a cappella anthem.

These choruses are well-suited to an all-male cast. The greatest challenges are in the female roles, where Sullivan wrote some beautiful bel canto tunes. As Mabel, Luke Garner-Greene makes an impressive stage debut, gamely tackling the considerable falsetto challenge. Robert Wilkes as Ruth has some terrific comic moments. Tom Newland is the living embodiment of the swaggering pirate king and Cameron McAllister has a fine voice and touching innocence in his performance as Frederic.

Right down to its cheesy ending when all’s right in this shining take on the Victorian world, Sasha Regan’s The Pirates of Penzance is a delightful don’t miss.

TATTOOER at the Charing Cross Theatre

★★★

“an authentic taste of Japanese theatre and art that Hoaglund’s translation respects”

At first there is silence. A slowly revolving set, plain white but daubed with an insect caught in a web of vivid brush strokes. The characters will gradually get lured into the web too over the next hour and a half. Many metaphors too; enough of them to feed the hungriest black widow. Lanterns hover above, vibrating like moths around a flame, or like the early tremors of an impending earthquake. Another metaphor? Who really knows? Takuya Kaneshima’s play, “Tattooer”, is inscrutable enough to withhold the answers, but open enough to leave us hanging on in the vain hope that we might find them.

Based on, or rather inspired by, the short story – ‘Shisei’ – by renowned Japanese author Jun’ichirō Tanizaki, it centres on Seikichi (Leo Ashizawa), a tattoo artist of high repute whose longtime wish is to ‘carve his soul’ into the skin of a beautiful woman. We never really understand his motives; whether it is merely to create a masterpiece or whether there is something more ominous going on. Seikichi relishes the pain of the tattoo too much. There are explicit undertones of sado-masochism, and there is something sinister and lecherous about him. Coercive even. Far from erotic, it renders Seikichi a wholeheartedly unlikeable character.

Before we meet him, we are introduced to the tattooer’s muse (is ‘tattooee’ a word?). She is Kazuyo, initially frightened but her compliance roots her to her fate. We are plunged into further obscurity by the fact that Kazuyo is split into two characters. Mao Aono is ‘Kazuyo A’ while Aki Nakagawa is ‘Kazuyo B’. The pair give wonderfully restrained and haunting performances. Their movements are sculptured, like ivory netsukes that slot into each other’s bodies and personalities. But like the play itself, our minds are filled with questions that never find their answers. Linda Hoaglund’s translation is as sparse as the original text’s intention, leaving us to rely on the almost mime-like spectacle – at times beautiful, at other times grotesque. Are they two sides of the same woman, are they sisters? Are they body and soul separated? Does Aono represent the pre-tattoo Kazuyo while Nakagawa depicts the aftermath? Are they representations of death and life?

Seikichi drugs Kazuyo A into submission. Kazuyo B wakes up transformed. Nakagawa deftly demonstrates a triumphant cruelty as the roles are reversed and the tattooer seems now to be the victim. But this is where our understanding becomes buried under the weight of allegory. Seikichi blinds himself. A twisted moment but gripping, courtesy of Rob Halliday’s lighting and Hogara Kawai’s direction. Black blood splatters through a crimson haze.

It is a short piece, and we are invited to stay in the auditorium at interval to watch the ink-brush painter Gaku Azuma paint the back of a newly arrived male model. By the second act he has created a work of art that covers the entire playing space (at the end of the run these should be put up for auction). The newcomer is Nozomi de Lencquesaing, an Englishman who has crossed the oceans to find the ‘legend’ that is Seikichi. A touch superfluous, it nevertheless brings the differing cultures closer together. But even without it, the evening is an authentic taste of Japanese theatre and art that Hoaglund’s translation respects. It may be an acquired taste for many, but it is sharp and refreshing. And mystifying. Kazuyo asks of the now blind tattooer; “Am I in the world I see, or the world you see?” We, too, are never entirely sure whose world we are seeing here. Yet it is an intriguing one. Picturesque and alluring, but too much of an enigma that never really gets under the skin.

THE PIRATES OF PENZANCE at Wilton’s Music Hall

★★★★

“A new and mostly fresh-faced cast give their all to this hugely enjoyable show”

THE PIRATES OF PENZANCE at Wilton’s Music Hall

Reviewed on 31st October 2024

by David Woodward

Photography by Mark Senior

Previously reviewed at this venue:

THE PIRATES OF PENZANCE

THE PIRATES OF PENZANCE

TATTOOER at the Charing Cross Theatre

★★★

“an authentic taste of Japanese theatre and art that Hoaglund’s translation respects”