Jonathan Miller’s production of The Mikado is nearly 30 years old and it has just returned to the ENO for its fourteenth revival. Next month will see its 200th performance. So, putting it mildly, this is a very popular show. And, whilst I would be happy to see it any time, its timing to coincide with the Christmas season is perfect. This is an opera that is sheer panto at heart.
The Mikado purports to be about Japan – in the opening scene, the chorus in fact declare it: “We are gentlemen of Japan.” But this is W.S. Gilbert’s topsy turvy world and (partly as a means of getting round the censor), he used Japan as the thinnest of veils enabling him to make fun of the upper echelons of English society. The Japanese theme also meant, of course, beguiling oriental costumes and sets and Sullivan uses (some of the time) Japanese motifs and all of these appealed to the Victorian taste for the exotic. Miller, however, updated the setting to the 1930s and a very English seaside grand hotel.
This was – and still is – inspired. The sets and costumes are glorious: the all-white grandiose hotel; schoolgirls in gymslips carrying lacrosse sticks; a very English vicar in plus fours; the top-hatted Pooh-Bah whose family lineage (and therefore the deference due to him) is so ancient and venerable it can be traced back to an amoeba.
The plot is simple. Nanki-Poo is in love with Yum-Yum, ward and betrothed of Ko-Ko, the Lord High Executioner (previously a humble tailor). Ko-Ko is commanded by the Mikado to carry out an execution and Ko-Ko is first in line for the chop unless he can find a substitute. He persuades Nanki-Poo to step in as victim promising him a month of marriage with Yum-Yum first. Nanki-Poo agrees but then Katisha arrives, who tries (but fails) to expose him as the Mikado’s son in disguise and her own betrothed. The marriage is about to go ahead when Ko-Ko discovers that as the widow of an executed man, Yum-Yum would be buried alive. She calls the wedding off.
The Mikado arrives, Ko-Ko tells him he has already done his duty as executioner – meanwhile the young couple are to marry and run away abroad (to Knightsbridge). Unfortunately, the Mikado, not realising the (unbeheaded) victim was his son wants to see Nanki-Poo. Ko-Ko is now condemned to death for killing the Mikado’s son. The only way for Nanki-Poo to come back to life is to get rid of the threat of marriage to Katisha – which Ko-Ko does by marrying her himself. The truth is out and with joyful reunions and wedded bliss all round.
In fact, though it may not sound like it, there are some serious moments. Katisha, described by Gilbert as “an elderly lady in love with Nanki-Poo” is given some lovely musical moments by Sullivan – all sung beautifully by Yvonne Howard. Of course, there are, too, songs that everyone knows: “Three Little Girls from School,” “Tit Willow,” “A Wandering Minstrel I.” The song that makes the night, though, is the “Little List.”
On becoming Lord High Executioner, Ko-Ko has a problem – he wouldn’t want to hurt a bluebottle. So he’s come up with a list of those people whom, if he had to execute someone, would not be missed. Updated every season, this time it includes Donald Trump, Jeremy Clarkson, cheating Russian athletes, the English rugby world cup squad, the president of FIFA, VW and a pack of political leaders. Cameron suffers allegations about farm animals, Corbyn wears a vest, Nicola Sturgeon a twinset, while the poor old Lib Dems don’t even make it on to the list – they don’t exist.
Richard Suart delivers his list with impeccable comic timing and brings the house down. His Ko-Ko has touches of vaudeville, pastiches of everyone from Olivier’s Richard III to Charlie Chaplin and the deadpan comic dancing of Max Wall. He is a joy throughout and this could almost be a one-man show, such is the spell he casts over his audience. But there are other fine players on the stage. Yum-Yum reveals an iron will beneath her coquettishness and just a smidgen of Joyce Grenfell. Bass Graeme Danby makes a superb poker-faced Pooh-Bah, born with a sneer. And veteran Robert Lloyd is a delight singing the Mikado for the first time – following 156 performances by the greatly missed Richard Angas.
And then there are the dancers; maids with mops, leaping bellboys, even some beheaded gentlemen in evening dress. They burst in regularly with camp enthusiasm and some of the funniest choreography I’ve ever seen. Funny, beautifully staged, fine performances, The Mikado is probably the best festive show in London.
The Mikado at the London Coliseum, St Martin’s Lane, London, until Wednesday 3rd February 2016. Running time approximately 2 hours and 40 minutes. For more information and tickets visit the website.
Images (c) Tristram Kenton.
