(please ignore the terrible title it's been a long week)
Gilbert and Sullivan objectively lived and died quite a long time ago, and it’s very easy to think of their comic operettas as hopelessly out of date, filled with long-since-irrelevant topical references, and now only the preserve of a highly specific sort of theatre kid and Old People – BUT! But! this latest production of Ruddigore as brilliantly envisioned by Artistic Director Heather Tiernan resurrects it just as deftly and easily as the ghost of the last Bad Baronet is resurrected at the end (Spoilers! but it’s 138 years old come on), featuring selfie sticks, a very shiny gun, and, most importantly, The GaysTM; a presence so exquisite and rare this semester that in the contemplation of them I have forgotten about and left to burn in the oven the quiche I traditionally always eat on a review night.
Having recovered my mostly edible quiche, we begin! With
a girl passed out in a Union Jack minidress and a terrible pressing
issue: not the daily crimes of the cursed baronet of Ruddigore, but a
critical lack of weddings, forcing the hungover party girl Chorus to
have endless hen-dos without a bride to celebrate! They are held in line
and dragged around by Dame Hannah, played by Orsolya Haynes in stiletto
heels as always, who tells the tale of her doomed romance with a
‘goddess-like youth’, Lucile Belorgey’s Lady Rowena Murgatroyd of
Ruddigore (I write GAY several times in my notebook in large letters).
The village’s marriage woes can only be solved by Eleanor White’s Rose
Maybud, wielding a tote bag and the most astonishingly powerful and
controlled singing voice I have heard in this town. Her life is ruled by
the word of a book of etiquette – Stephanie Meyers’ Twilight –
to which she constantly refers, and she offers apples to people in
trouble (which would make my day; more people should do this). 
ID: the cast at the wedding. Credit: Adam Mercer
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| ID: Ben Stockil and Eleanor White flirting. Credit: Adam Mercer. |
Tragically though, the best couple is straight: Kate Nolting’s manic pixie dream girl Mad Margaret and Charlie Macbeth’s Bad Baronet Despard Murgatroyd. Kate rolls onto stage in a completely exquisite wedding dress covered in layers of mad messy tulle, and holds the audience’s attention with a mix of manic energy and noble tragic love. Charlie mock-ominously creeps up behind the chorus in an oldy-worldy suit and hat with his hands stretched out grasping: he bemoans his fate to commit daily crimes and be always feared, represented by hands creepily reaching round and grasping him (I find all the careful use of hands in this show extremely sexually exciting), and glows under powerfully creepy UV lights (credit Luke Siever). It is difficult to imagine a better performance of this role – Charlie is absolutely in control, with infinite dejected gravitas.
The first half ends with a wedding: the chorus are infinitely excited, and celebrate every possible iteration of brides and grooms throughout the show, but infinitely more than infinitely excited is Dame Hannah. Orsi leads Eleanor on to be married with endless attentive glances, gossips proudly in the back, and then has to be physically dragged away from congratulating the happy couple – this is my ideal for how to be an aunt at weddings. You think she alone has stolen the scene until Kate sneaks in to photobomb the wedding photos and Charlie appears on the stairs, says boo to an audience member (exquisite), and forces Robin/Ruthven to reclaim his baronetcy and its curse.
So
things are inverted in the second half: Ben comes into his own as the
new Bad Baronet, lying down dramatically on the chaise-longue as he
thinks up pathetically weak crimes to commit, and jerking around
violently and painfully as his ancestors emerge from their paintings
(becoming slowly visible with spotlights behind a thin layer of black
fabric which then rises – exquisite) to punish him for failing to do so.
Charlie and Kate undergo a total metamorphosis in my favourite scene of
the play: they try to be boringly respectable, with Charlie chastising
Kate in a deep flat respectable voice and the threat of the thought of
Dundee. They wiggle up and down in time to the beat and move their arms
in strange motions and into prayer poses and I’m probably supposed to
find it and their toxic relationship dynamic creepy but in fact I’m into
it. I am just in love with the choreography in this show.
ID: Eleanor White reading from Twilight to Orsolya Haynes. Credit: Adam Mercer.
But good things eventually have to come to an end. Sam, extremely excited to be able to be a villain’s sidekick, struggles to drag in a rope, with Orsi on the other end of it, her hair down and somehow infinitely thick and luscious. After some mild death threats she is reunited with Lucile, whom she calls a bad bad girl (oh to be called a bad bad girl by Orsi), they sing a beautiful song together while almost-dancing with each other, and then a solution is found for the curse, so Ben can get back together with Eleanor, Struan can get back together with Sam, the lights go rainbow colours, and the show ends with half of the main couples being gay. TAKE NOTES, theatre people of St Andrews! This was a production with some serious hiccups, but it was still enjoyable and funny throughout because of its passionate performances, sense of humour, and excellent direction. Extravagant silly fun with attention to detail is one of the best things student theatre can be. If you want a fun night out, grab a ticket for one or both of the two remaining shows!
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other erin