REVIEWS

The Hot Mikado - Watermill, Newbury
By Caroline Franklin - Newbury Weekly News

Summer sizzler. Steaming... that's the verdict on Craig Revel Horwood's lascivious Hot Mikado. Hot Mikado at The Watermill, Bagnor, until September 2.

Director Craig Revel Horwood meets Gilbert and Sullivan at The Watermill and the consequence is an explosive firecracker of a show.

The 14 actor/musicians dazzled the audience on the first Friday with a performance which, amazingly on this small stage, included big dance numbers, not only tap, rock 'n' roll, swing and even marching, but also touches of tai chi and occasionally those little tittupy steps associated with the original Mikado.

Against a simple background, using window screens to give a kabuki-look to the theatre, the performers produced a gloriously slick, energetic torrent of sound punched straight at the audience.

Here were three gorgeous little maids like you've never seen them, with Nicola Hughes (Yum-Yum), Helen Power (Pitti-Sing) and Georgina Field (Peep-Bo), bodies on the writhe, eyelashes batting, giving it their all - and then some. Craig wanted them to have "the most lascivious manner possible". They succeeded and were funny as well.

Months of gruelling casting has produced a superb set of actors not only brilliant individually, but working together with immense vitality and expertise to create a hilarious whizzbang of an evening.

Much of the original script is retained and it was good to hear an audience laughing at what was always very funny dialogue. Some lyrics have undergone changes, but Ko-Ko (Jeffrey Harmer) still has a little list, and Katisha (Karen Mann brilliantly alternating between virago and rejected love) continues to have a left shoulder-blade of distinction.

This is not a production for those who like their entertainment quiet and tender, though Nicola Hughes' superb gospel-like rendering of The Sun Whose Rays, sung standing on a baby grand piano comes nearest to it.

That same piano takes the strain of Yum-Yum and Nanki-Poo's (Andrew Alexander) passion, so nearly boiling over as they sang of what would have happened were Yum-Yum not engaged to Ko-ko. Magnificent stuff.

Award-winning musical director Sarah Travis who describes the score as one of the hardest ever "but this cast make it seem simple", not only manipulated the music into mood-catching great arrangements but actually got to be on stage playing piano as Ting-Tong - and having a good time she says.

In this cast of stars Ian Conningham (Pooh Bah) shone as brightly as any and this Lord High-Everything-Else had shades of the Artful Dodger and Steptoe mixed with Pop Larkin. The result - hilarity.

Craig Revel Horwood and his team have produced a joyous masterpiece which you must see, no question. The Mikado (Junix Inocian) says on his entry: "If Gilbert and Sullivan could see me now!" If they could, they'd have wide smiles on their faces like the rest of us. Another Watermill triumph.