The Mikado

This production seems to have come under a lot of criticism but personally after listening to countless productions of The Mikado I found it actually to be rather good. Firstly I think that Clive Revill was an excellent Ko Ko as he managed to capture the sly yet pathetic nature of the character well and his delivery of the spoken parts is brilliant and really livens them up. Secondly Stafford Dean as Pooh-Bah was also top notch and his rendition of the dialogue describing all his roles was a scream. An Honourable mention must also go to the actors playing Pish-Tush who manages to flesh out a fairly insubstantial part effectively. I think it is also worth mentioning for G&S fans that this production has managed to avoid the temptation of fiddling around with the Little List song and the Mikado song and inserting topical references as so many theatre productions seem to do these days and the dialogue was commendably faithful (I'm enough of a nerd to compare the Libretto to my Annotated Gilbert and Sullivan). The only reason i'm not giving this full marks is because William Conrad's Mikado was a bit flat particularly in the Humane Mikado song which is after all one of the highlights. However Conrad was OK during the Mikado's dialogue (capturing the character's paradox of handing out bloodthirsty punishments in a kind manner) and the part isn't big enough for the slightly flat performance to affect the overall piece. In summary then a very good traditional production that is well worth seeing.