A revival of Gilbert & Sullivan’s Ruddigore doesn’t fairly do sufficient to justify dusting off this rarity at Wilton’s Music Hall
“This particularly rapid, unintelligible patter
Isn’t generally heard, and if it is it doesn’t matter”
The rarefied sound of Gilbert & Sullivan feels ideally suited to the atmospheric setting of Wilton’s Music Hall however fairly than certainly one of Sasha Regan’s all-male productions reappearing, it’s Oracle Productions taking the result in current us with certainly one of G&S’ lesser-known works – Ruddigore, or The Witch’s Curse. Directed right here by Peter Benedict, it feels fairly clear why it’s certainly lesser carried out.
Ruddigore blends their customary social satire with a contact of the supernatural as a household curse afflicting a baronet means he should commit a criminal offense on daily basis or perish in agony. To have any probability of escaping it, he’s acquired to take care of good-looking sailors, pissed off bridesmaids, a set of haunted household portraits and extra moreover, all within the hope that all the pieces will come good on the finish for a rousing finale.
A sure daftness is par for the course for G&S however Ruddigore by no means fairly gained me over. Part of the issue lies in Benedict’s manufacturing selections, choosing a recent framing system which stays frustratingly unresolved as to the way it actually associated to the present. And although there’s expertise within the firm, the skill-set doesn’t at all times appear to incorporate the required crispness of diction to work with the lyrical complexity that’s basic in exhibits like this. It is painfully obvious at instances.
There’s at all times pleasure in seeing Rosie Ashe onstage, the richness of her stage presence a pure match for the innate campness of Dame Hannah. But for all MD Tom Noyes’ laborious work, there’s no mistaking the thinness of sound that comes from such a small band, the error coming in making an attempt emulate the orchestral sound fairly than making new preparations work for the personnel at hand. It’s laborious to know what to make of it ultimately, a curiosity that considerably deserves its relative obscurity.