Photos: Robert Piwko

This production is a good example of an endangered type: traditional, amateur, all ability G&S. It’s pleasing, inclusive community theatre. There was a lot of it about when I was growing up. I wish we saw more of it now.

Princess Ida opened in 1884 and was Gilbert and Sullivan’s eighth collaboration.  With its three acts and coyly medieval dialogue, it has never been one of their most popular shows. I think this was the fifth time I’ve seen it over a lifetime of G&S as opposed to, say, The Mikado which I’ve seen more than fifty times.  Inspired my Tennyson’s long 1847 poem, The Princess, it pokes fun at women’s education which was, at last, getting off the ground by the 1880s and as such, irritates me slightly.  It’s perfectly possible for a woman to be highly educated and to be a wife and mother – thanks very much. So, in some ways it’s very dated. On the other hand, the whole idea of men donning women’s clothes and trying to get into female spaces has never been more topical.  Despite this creakiness, there are some good numbers and I left the theatre humming the finale waltz.

Andy Noakes is excellent as King Gama. He gets the two best songs and really runs with them – all malevolence and perfect diction. Janette Cattell, as Ida, commands the stage when she’s on it, brings all the appropriate gravitas to her role as leader of an impregnable (not) Castle Adamant, loosely based on Girton College which was founded in 1869. She sings to a professional standard too. So do Nathan Killen as Cyril and Andy Lee as Florian.  And Killen’s drunk song is a very funny showstopper. Both Killen and Lee are prominent in some of the chorus singing which helps to keep it on track.

The Bob Hope Theatre, which I like very much, has a strange orchestra pit which is literally under the stage. Musicians have almost to crawl in and MD David Stevens has to reach up with his left hand when he needs to keep the singing together. It’s a twelve-piece band and they cope with the space well. And one or two weak entries nothwithstanding, there’s some lovely playing in the this show although some of the tempi feel very slow.

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  Photos: Robert Piwko

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• First published by Sardines https://www.sardinesmagazine.co.uk/review/princess-ida-2/