Review: HMS Pinafore, The Tabard Theatre, Chiswick ★★★★★

Smooth sailing from a creative team at the very top of its game.

Gilbert and Sullivan wrote HMS Pinafore in 1878, and it was an immediate and historic sensation: 571 consecutive performances at the Opera Comique, a record at the time, with a plot that took cheerful aim at class snobbery, naval pomposity, and the absurdities of inherited rank. Nearly a century and a half later, the piece retains every ounce of its capacity to delight, and in the hands of Take Note Theatre at the intimate Tabard in Chiswick, it has been given new life with wit, warmth, and genuine theatrical intelligence.

One detail the programme illuminates, and which this production handles with knowing relish, is the darkness lurking behind Buttercup’s cheerful confession that she was once a “baby farmer.” This was no comic invention: in 19th-century Britain, infants were taken in for payment by women who promised to foster or care for them, with results that were frequently exploitative and sometimes fatal. The most notorious case, that of Amelia Dyer, convicted in 1896 of murdering babies in her care, horrified the nation. Buttercup’s breezy admission, delivered here with exquisite comic timing, would have carried a distinctly unsettling edge for contemporary Victorian audiences. The production is wise enough to let this land.

Produced by Simon and Sarah Reilly for Take Note Theatre, this is the reunion of the creative team behind last year’s acclaimed The Mikado, winner of the London Pub Theatres Standing Ovation Award for Innovation. Director Keith Strachan brings fifty years of experience in music and theatre to the helm, and has co-written some well-known songs along the way (his credits include Mistletoe and Wine, which won him an Ivor Novello Award).

His decision to relocate the action to a 1940s naval vessel proves entirely inspired: the wartime setting sits naturally with the patriotic fanfare of the piece, and gives the designers a richly evocative visual world to inhabit.

Musical director Annemarie Lewis Thomas has reworked Sullivan’s score for a pared-down arrangement of keyboard and flute. Far from feeling like a compromise, the result is effervescent. Annemarie Lewis Thomas performs alongside the remarkable Marissa Landy, who plays Cousin Hebe and flautist simultaneously, switching from instrument to song in seconds and leaping about the stage with what can only be described as exhilarating commitment. She is also responsible for the choreography, and everything she touches in this production fizzes.

The eight-strong ensemble are all highly accomplished. Finan McKinney, whose credits include the West End and multiple major tours, brings considerable charm to Ralph Rackstraw. Stevie Jennings-Adams as Josephine is silvery-voiced and deliciously funny in equal measure, a performer of real musical pedigree (she has sung at the Thursford Christmas Spectacular before Her Royal Highness the Princess of Wales, and it shows). Gloria Acquaah-Harrison brings gospel-rooted warmth and flair to a flirtatious Buttercup, her comic timing impeccable. Leopold Benedict‘s Captain Corcoran, prim, snobbish, and magnificently self-important, is the perfect foil. Ryan Erikson Downey rounds out the ensemble with real presence as Dick Deadeye.

As Sir Joseph Porter, West End veteran John Griffiths, a man whose credits span the National Theatre, Regent’s Park, the Palladium, and The Phantom of the Opera, was perfectly at home filling a room of fifty, acting with every part of himself up to his eyelashes. In the intimate warmth of the Tabard, not a flicker was missed.

One particular highlight comes with “Over the bright blue sea,” reinvented as an Andrews Sisters number and performed by Jennings-Adams, Acquaah-Harrison, and Landy as an affectionate tribute to the wartime setting. It is a moment of sheer theatrical joy. The combined hornpipe that followed drew huge smiles from all corners of the auditorium, children and grandparents alike.

Rob Miles‘s inventive set and Sandra Szaron‘s atmospheric lighting transport the audience aboard the Pinafore with admirable economy. The design supports rather than competes, and if you happened to catch the ENO’s production earlier this year with its vast and somewhat overwhelming set, the contrast is instructive. Simplicity, when it is this purposeful, is its own form of theatrical intelligence.

Pat McMahon and Faith Powlett complete the design team, creating a flag-waving, patriotic atmosphere with genuine warmth. Audience members were invited to wave their own flags alongside the cast, and the moment when Gloria Acquaah-Harrison switched hers mid-scene prompted particular delight.

A 1940s naval Pinafore with a cast who could fill the Albert Hall. Pub theatre at its absolute finest.

The Tabard earns its reputation not merely on stage but in everything around it. A free twelve-page programme is a generosity that larger venues would do well to consider. There is delicious food downstairs, a pub garden to spill into at the interval, and Turnham Green station is moments away.

If this becomes an annual Gilbert and Sullivan event at the Tabard, and one very much hopes it will, then an annual pilgrimage to Chiswick is already in the diary.

The Tabard Theatre, 2 Bath Road, London, W4 1LW. Tickets from £22.50. Running time approximately 2 hours including interval. Book at tabard.org.uk

Latest reviews: