Review: Iolanthe. “Bow, bow, ye lower middle classes” to the Gilbert and Sullivan Society, and their mastery of comedy.

For those of you living under a rock, Iolanthe is a comedic opera, first performed in 1882, with a cult following – everybody and their auntie loves Gilbert and Sullivan. It is the seventh of fourteen operatic collaborations and tells the tale of love that conquers unjust laws… and has fairies in all their whimsy messing (in more ways than one) with a bumbling House of Lords.

ID: Sophie Longstaff, Matthew Colquhoun, and Charlie Macbeth. Credit: Ava Daniels and Adam Mercer.

Iolanthe, having been banished from the fairy kingdom, lives with the frogs (shock! Horror!) because she broke fairy law. She married a mortal and should have died but was spared on the condition she fakes her death and never reveals herself to her husband again. But not before she was with child – dun, dun, dun.

Five-and-twenty years after her banishment, she is pardoned and her son, Strephon, gets to meet his aunts and deliciously cunty grandmother, the Fairy Queen. We find out he’s in love with a mortal: Phyllis, a ward of Chancery, and without the Chancellor’s consent they can’t marry. Slight issue – Strephon is a poor Arcadian shepherd, and the Lord Chancellor is also in love with Phyllis… it’s a real doozy.

I loved it.

I went into this show wanting camp, wanting absurdity, craving some good ol’ gay drama, and boy, oh, boy did these guys serve it hot. I came out of the performance with twelve pages of notes. Twelve! I was worried the people around me were getting annoyed by my constant, howling guffaws.

It was exactly what I needed after a shitty and stressful Tuesday.

The show was accompanied by a live orchestra and by the second musical number I had these shivers running up and down my spine and arms, the kind I only ever get when harmonies are, for lack of a better word, divine. And that’s where comedic operas sometimes fall short of being great performances – the conflict between a beautiful score and constant tomfoolery (and its accompanying laughter) can be difficult to manage, but these guys absolutely ate.

ID: Juliana Menegakis, Sophie Rose Jenkins, Kate Nolting, Lydia Hothersall and Heather Tiernan. Credit: Ava Daniels and Adam Mercer.

The star-crossed lovers weren’t my favourite in act one – they were a little clumsy in their embraces, but in a way, it was sweet and felt very fitting of Victorian virgins to fumble around before their wedding. I may be taken out back and shot for this, but I was glad the score for Phyllis’ character allowed Ailsa Calder to show off her vocal skills because the way the character was written allowed for not much else. By act two, however, I was obsessed with the pair. The curtain rose and Phyllis’ character had transformed from the kind of chastely bland damsel, that is so often found in writing of the time (I think this may have been the issue in act one), to a three-dimensional character who had entered the sphere of comedy and Calder was finally given the material to actually act.

Unfortunately, Iolanthe wasn’t there when personality and spirit was being handed out to the female characters and she remained as two dimensional and pure and so wife-that-tragically-dies-before-the-start-of-the-film coded until the very end. I would have written her off as another female character written by MenTM and directed my attention elsewhere had Selma Bystrand Straumits not had the most insane set of pipes. If she had just stood centre stage, stock-still, and serenaded us for two-and-a-half hours I still would have given her a standing ovation (that’s right; they received a standing ovation when they took their bows and they earned every hoot and holler).

ID: Sean Hallissey, Thessaly Silknet, Sophie Rose Jenkins, Lydia Crabtree, Juliana Menegakis, Lydia Hothersall, and Kate Nolting. Credit: Ava Daniels and Adam Mercer.

There was not a weak member in this cast, but as much as I wanted to stick by the fairies, I fear the Lords won this battle of the sexes (or as I wrote it in my notes, “the Lords out-cunt the fairies, I fear”).
They were a bunch of dazzling buffoons and absolutely bodied the character of old, white, rich knobs. Specifically, Sophie Longstaff’s Lord Tolloller and Charlie Macbeth’s Lord Mountararat stood out to me – Macbeth (am I allowed to say it in a theatre review?) looked like he was having so much fun from the moment he started singing, and Longstaff really nailed a kind of little-freak energy Barry Keoghan would be envious of. And their dynamic was ridiculously delightful, and I couldn’t stop laughing whenever they were on stage together – they truly make a great comedic duo; their scintillating chemistry during the “we were boys together” exchange was incredible. I also loved the way they came back on stage half-dressed and wearing each other’s spectacles. One could argue this shtick to be overdone, alas I am a simple creature, and this shit gets me every time.

But the blundering star of the show, without a doubt was Matthew Colquhoun – he came on stage in that fuck-ass wig, and I knew this was the diva I had been waiting for. He ate every monologue, slayed the snobby-prick voice, and his freakish cackle was sublime. It was as if the Sicilian from The Princess Bride and Prince Charming from Shrek had a torrid affair, and the nasally peacock prancing around the stage before us was the spawn of that monstrous union. And yet, he was somehow giving Phil Dunphy energy at the same time, and it was distressingly endearing. I fear I understand where Iolanthe was coming from (spoilers: he’s actually her husband).

ID: Luke Siever, Jack Davis, Sophie Longstaff, Sean Hallissey, Lara Buchanan, and Charlie Macbeth.

Colquhoun was giving slim shady a run for his money as he bitched about how he couldn’t sleep (so real) because he still wants to marry his ward (ew) even though he promised her to Tolloller and/or Mountararat. But regardless of how objectively creepy his lines were, he was simply mesmerising to watch. Even when he wasn’t the focus of the scene it was impossible to not to notice his acting; Matthew is a true thespian and was born to be on the stage.

Now, before I slip back into old literature student habits and start analysing every scene, detailing how each choice made this show the second-best performance I’ve seen (sorry, but Ian McKellen as Mother Goose in Sheffield will always take top spot) in my entire life – I’ll wrap this up. Y’all slayed so hard, absolutely ate down, left no crumbs.

I left the Byre already wanting to sit down and watch the show again, unfortunately I had a theatre review to write, and my friends were busy, so I couldn’t drag them to the other two nights, despite desperately wanting to.

With love,

A newly fledged G&S fan <3