The Mikado review - feels as fresh as paint

Jonathan Miller’s ageless ENO production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Mikado is beginning its 14th revival. The Coliseum performance on 6 December will be the 200th. Revivals always differ, but it is as fresh as paint this time. If you have never seen it, go. If, like me, it’s a decade or two since you last went, then go again.

Individual good things abound in this latest outing. But it is Miller’s production, part Noel Coward, part Marx Brothers, part Busby Berkeley tap-dance routine, with its grand hotel setting and its essential insight that The Mikado says infinitely more about England than it says about Japan, that still makes the evening hum. The Mikado is a wonderful score, with both Gilbert and, in particular, Sullivan stretching themselves to great effect, but Miller’s show liberates the piece to give of its best, as a good production should.

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After a stolid account of the overture, debutant Fergus Macleod in the pit kept things moving nicely and lightly, daring some crisp tempi as the evening developed, though this brilliant score deserves a dash more orchestral sparkle. The tap-dancing bell boys and chamber maids were absolutely first-class.

Robert Lloyd, even more of a veteran than the production itself, sings the title role with wit and charm, showing he is still in good voice. Richard Suart’s Ko-Ko again showed why his characterisation, more disciplined than I remember it, is a Coliseum institution. His “little list” is full of sharp touches – victims this time include Jeremy Clarkson, Nicola Sturgeon, David Cameron and Sepp Blatter. And it is no small achievement to get a 2015 audience to laugh at jokes about decapitation.

Mary Bevan’s is the vocal adornment of the evening, with Rachael Lloyd’s elegant Pitti-Sing and Fiona Canfield’s Peep-Bo completing the schoolgirl trio. Anthony Gregory is a small-voiced Nanki-Poo but looks the part, while Graeme Danby is a fine Pooh-Bah, whose multi-tasking as chancellor of the exchequer and lord chief justice may have triggered a few ideas for the head of the civil service Sir Jeremy Heywood, who was sitting in the stalls on the first night.