Cheap Gilbert & Sullivan - The Mikado / Donkin, Saks, Stratford Festival (DVD) (Norman Campbell) Price

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Customer Reviews of Gilbert & Sullivan - The Mikado / Donkin, Saks, Stratford Festival

The cast is very strong, and benefits from being actors, as opposed to singers. The weakest link in the cast (and I think any one will agree with me) is Henry Ingram as Nanki-Poo, who is not an actor, just a singer. He's not the young, handsome type that one would like to see in the role, nor is he even all that funny. Marie Baron as Yum-Yum is high spirited, bubbly, and funny. Also exceedinly comical is Richard McMillan's Pooh-Bah, who steals the show. Eric Donkin is a perfect Ko-Ko, of the D'Oyly Care breed. Pish-Tush (Allen Stewart-Coates) is generally a non-descript, but is of strong voice and personality here, and is left to be fairly memorable. Karen Wood is PERFECT for the adorable Pitti-Sing, and is cute and charming to boot! My least favorite presence in the cast, though, is Gidon Saks as The Mikado of Japan himself. Now, I love over the top performances, as you can tell from my praise of McMillan, but this one crosses the lines of what's bearable. I feel that a strong Mikado, next to being highly comical, should at least be somewhat intimidating. Saks just plays the Mikado as a big goofy man, that strikes fear into no one (except for the cast, for some strange reason).

The production was brilliantly and swiftly staged by Brian MacDonald, who keeps everything comical and at a swift pace.

(Incedentally, I did THE MIKADO myself this summer with the local G&S Society, a first-rate Summer Stock company. A Canadian tenor played Nanki-Poo, and he told me HORROR STORIES of what it was like for friends of his who have worked with Mr. MacDonald.)

This is the best out of the Stratford G&S series, since it's the beginning, and it was before MacDonald and musical director Carriere got too self-indulgent in what they thought they could do to Gilbert & Sullivan's work.

The two CBC documentaries included on the DVD are very informative. And I seriously doubt that it was really filmed live. The laughter and applause sounds canned, and you never ONCE see the audience. And from the way the camera moves, I think it was filmed in an empty theatre with the audience added later.

But this is still a first-rate production. Mnimalist and fast-paced, it is theatrically refershing, and a great introduction to G&S for any one!

a great production
This production of The Mikado is the best I've seen. The chorus is very strong and dances around the stage instead of standing at the back like a prop; and the lead singers are great. Ko-Ko steals the show, he is funny and "patters" perfectly, Pooh-Bah looks like he WAS born smirking, and Marie Baron fits the role of Yum-Yum perfectly, with a wonderful voice too. The Mikado, as others have said, was a little over-the-top with his elongated pronounciation, but Katisha was very good and Nanki-Poo had an excellent voice if he was a little wooden. The best in her part I thought was Pitti-Sing, who was cute and spirited and perfect. Buy it!

A waste of plastic.
I plan to sell my copy of the DVD to a used record dealer, because I don't have the heart ever to look at it again. In most respects I was very disappointed in this amateurish production. Some of the singing's not bad; none is REALLY bad; that's the best part. I felt the sets and costumes were minimal and ugly--amazing, since G&S costumery is often lavish and splendid. Annoying tricks of acting, a superannuated and unattractive cast, and poor direction make this presentation a waste of money.