The Pirates of Penzance – King’s Theatre, Edinburgh

The Edinburgh Gilbert and Sullivan Society are back with a production of The Pirates of Penzance, directed by Alan Borthwick and David Lyle and starring Keegan Siebken as Frederic, Lorna Murray as Mabel, Sebastion Davidson as the Pirate King and Colin Povey as Major-General Stanley, the latter being responsible for perhaps the show’s most famous aspect, the Major General’s Song (“I am the very model of a modern Major-General”), basically the XIXth century Alphabet Aerobics in terms of tongue-twisting at speed.

Fittingly for a comic opera, the show’s very title is humorous on several levels. On the one hand, Penzance was a docile seaside resort at the time, and consequently not the place one would expect to encounter pirates in, and on the other, the title worked as a jab at the theatrical “pirates” who had staged unlicensed productions of H.M.S. Pinafore in America. This prompted Gilbert and Sullivan to delay publication of the score and libretto and hold the official premiere of this new show, their 5th, in the United States, the only time they did so, in order to try to get ahead of the pirate versions. Parallel to this, they secured the British copyright by holding a simultaneous “premiere” which was little more than a script-in-hand run-through by the cast of HMS Pinafore, who had received some of the music for the show only two days beforehand, had only one had rehearsal, and had to improvise costumes with whatever they had on hand.

Not only was all this effort ultimately unsuccessful, but in fact the first piracy involving The Pirates of Penzance was carried out by Gilbert and Sullivan themselves. Sullivan arrived in New York for rehearsals without his music for Act I. What he couldn’t reconstruct from memory, he self-plagiarised from their earlier comic opera, Thespis.

However, more modern versions have tended to lean into the association with a more modern Pirate, the ones known for being Of the Caribbean. This show gets that right out of the way by opening and violently disposing of a cardboard cut-out of Captain Jack Sparrow. We then meet Frederic, The Pirate King and his rather tender-hearted crew. Due to an error on the part of his nurse, Frederic has spent most of his life apprenticed to these pirates, but this has now ended with his 21st birthday, releasing him back to normal life, which turns out to revolve around the many (rather horny) daughters of Major-General Stanley. Amongst them is Mabel, and the two young people promptly fall in love, bringing Frederic’s conscience, duty and old and new friends into conflict, especially when it turns out Frederic was born on February 29th of a leap year, meaning he is technically only a quarter of the way through the pirate apprenticeship ending on his 21st birthday.

The directors’ approach was one of “unfaltering attention to detail, traditional values and passion for G&S” according to company president Andrew Crawford, and in the eyes of at least this audience member, the result lacks a lot of bite. The Pirate King considers himself “comparatively honest”, and not playing on the “comparative” part more deprives the show of much of the narrative tension it might have. The same is equally true of Ruth (Mairi Coyle), whose rejection by Frederic and later assimilation into the Pirates feels more like unconnected background events rather than reasons for added friction between characters. One might argue it would be blasphemy to go against the traditional values of previous productions, but that doesn’t seem to have done much harm to much older shows such as the ones by William Shakespeare, the Bard who sold Avon.

This production was a substitution for another, lesser known, Gilbert and Sullivan operetta, Patience, which Covid got in the way of, but which is now also going ahead as a concert performance at Canongate Kirk. Covid then struck again soon before the opening night of Pirates, with up to ten cast members contracting the virus and therefore being unable to appear in early performances. As such it seems fair to point out the less than ideal circumstances for the performers, many of which probably had to adjust long-rehearsed blocking and maybe even vocal parts, but the fact is still that, at various points, timings and tunings were off amongst the vocal cast, despite generally strong performances from the leads, with Colin Povey’s Major-General Stanley being a particular stand-out (in a good way), whether in uniform or in his nightshirt clutching a teddy bear.

Another issue was one of volume. The decision seems to have been taken to amplify the cast with floor mics, resulting in the opposite result as several vocal performers were drowned out by the noise of their own feet. Thanks to that and the occasional speakers’ bursts of hum and feedback, it eventually dawned on the audience that the mysterious background creak of rigging from the absent pirate ship must actually be coming from the performers’ feet on the floorboards. The unfortunate outcome of this attempt was that some performers were not only still difficult to hear but were now facing added competition from their fellow cast-members shoes. These technical issues might be excusable, if not understandable, in a visiting production, but seem quite baffling considering the company is local and has a decades-long relationship with the venue.

These problems are all the more unfortunate in how they distract from what is, at the very least, a very clear and passionate labour of love from everyone involved. The Society reportedly spends £60,000 on these productions every year, and every (self-raised) penny is clearly up on that stage, from the 50+ performers on-stage (illness allowing) and 26 piece live orchestra to the two huge sets by Paul Lazell, representing a rocky seashore and a ruined chapel by moonlight (courtesy of lighting designer Mike Pendlowski), not to mention all the costumes by Utopia Costumes, props (so may pirate swords) by Mary Scott and wardrobe by Karolina Anuszkiewicz and Iona Lynch to outfit such a big cast.

Hopefully many of these issues will be resolved quickly with the return of the missing cast-members and a rejig of some of the tech. However, whether they are or not, they were a big part of the show in its current state, and a problem the rest of the show was unable to overcome, for all its enthusiasm, dedication and hard work. https://www.capitaltheatres.com/whats-on/edgas-the-pirates-of-penzance

Reviewer: Oliver Giggins.

Reviewed: 22^nd March 2022

North West End UK Rating: ★★