HMS PINAFORE
Regent’s Park

PINAFORE is this year’s musical in the Park. And to this old seadog it is just about perfect.
Skillfully adapted by Herbert Appleman and directed by Ian Talbot, it is two hours of joy – 29 musical numbers, cutting satire, dancing sailors and wenches, and all the characteristics, good and hypocritical, of Victorian England.
Appleman has built up the role of Dauntless Dick Deadeye (Gary Wilmot), the only common jacktar on board, for his is the voice of stark reality.
As seaman Ralph Rackstraw seeks the hand of Captain Corcoran’s daughter, her father has promised her to Sir Joseph Porter KCB “the ruler of the Queen’s Navy”, who is about to visit Pinafore.
Of course, true love will triumph because “Little Buttercup has a vital secret to reveal in the fullness of time”.
It is 1878 and Pinafore is anchored off Portsmouth and Paul Farnsworth designing makes it very shipshape and a pleasure to the eye.
Desmond Barrit is splendid as Sir Joseph and his entrance down a ramp through the audience is more regal than magisterial. He sings with gusto the old favourite: “I am a monarch of the sea” and “When I was a lad”. It takes you to the heart of Gilbert’s satire. His first cousin Habe (Sirene Saba) provides a cameo of lust and status and fine comic timing. Little Buttercup (Leslie Nicol), the bumboat woman, in another acute observation. Little and afraid, she is not in her mountainous garb. Josephine (Scarlett Strallen) and Ralph (Simon Thomas) as the love birds play the humour which this absurd tradition demands.
Among the box of delights: “He is an Englishman,” alone is worth the show when yards of Union Jacks appeared.
But Dick Deadeye is the one to watch. He knows about class and obeying the social order and is not the least impressed by Joseph’s pressing of the flesh. Appleman has made Dick the star of the show for he is the alter ego of Gilbert – if you seek such deeper meaning. Gary Wilmot always impresses. He is a little better than just an all rounder.
A leading light in the Open Air Theatre, buttonholed me before the show and said it’s very camp you know. Maybe. But it is a splendid nautical entertainment. The band led by Caroline Jays could well be a naval band such is their volume and vigour.
Oh, and Queen Victoria enters sedately down the ramp to turn it all into the Last Night of the Proms. Could you ask for more?

Until September 3
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