H.M.S. Pinafore

As a life long fan of Gilbert & Sullivan, I was appalled at this production which I personally found to be terribly "high camp".

The singers were surely miscast - age wise - and Frankie Howard as Sir Joseph Porter KGB is the biggest piece of miscasting I have ever encountered.

A funny man does not necessarily make a funny part any funnier - and in this case - it fell totally flat as far as I am concerned.

I would not recommend this purchase to anyone who has a true love of G & S - you will be sorely disappointed - as I was.

I bought this to use as a model for a production of this work I will be mounting in Tennessee in March-April 2007, but I will not let my cast look at this production.

I am sorely tempted to throw it in the trash can.... This may sound harsh - but true lovers of G & S will, I believe, find this production unworthy.

I was so excited when I first bought H.M.S. Pinafore on Video. It is one of my favorite musicals, along with many of the other Gilbert & Sullivan operas, but when I watched it for the first time, I was somewhat disappointed. Most of the cast does a really good job with their respective roles. What really infuriated me was Frankie Howerd's interpretation of Sir Joseph Porter. For one thing, he didn't sing a single lyric, he actually spoke through them. When the chorus came in between his solo lines, it didn't make any musical sense. That most definitely would have made Sullivan, who was very adamant about his music being heard, very angry. Another thing he did was ad-lib most of his lines, something Gilbert, being the strict man that he was, would not have allowed. He also had a very annoying speaking voice which I could barely stand listening to. Peter Marshall has a great singing voice and would have otherwise been perfect for the role of Captain Corcoran. Even though he was good in the singing and the dialogue, his manner was too childish. He lacked the dignity that the Captain traditionally has and thought it more suitable to dance around like a five-year-old at a birthday party. I thought it made him look like an idiot. Also, the woman playing Buttercup didn't have a strong singing voice. To me, it sounded like she took a breath between every single word in her aria at the beginning of the show. She also kind of over did it with the acting business toward the end. The rest of the cast was really good. The only minor disappointment I had was that the man playing Rackstraw didn't hit the high note in his recitative leading into the first act, but that's not really a big deal. He was terrific, otherwise. Not the best in the series, but at least it completes the collection.

When first I obtained this VHS from the library I was hopeful that opera world would be able to give a decent presentation of this classic Operetta. I was sorely disappointed. I will start with Frankie Howard's performance of Sir Joseph. I cannot say that he preformed the part badly, because that would imply that he actually did the part. He said very few of Gilbert's words (he seemed to ad-lib most of the duologue) and he sang none of Sulivan's notes. If one does not say the lines of a part, or sing the music of it, it cannot be said that one performed the part at all. What he did do, was not very entertaining. As Captain Corcoran, Peter Marshal was not nearly as horrendous as Mr. Howard, but was still far from good. He sang the part well, but his acting, both in his interpretation of his lines and his facial expression, was very annoying and of a rather silly nature. Alan Watt was a mediocre Dick Deadeye at best. He would randomly make oddly silly faces for no real reason taking any power from his lines. He also popped our from random objects for no apparent reason. For the character to have any humorous effect he must be serious about what he is doing, and between the random jumping, and odd faces, it was obvious that he was little more than a clown. Ralph and Josphine were both decently portrayed, singing well and acting sufficiently. As a whole however this production had very few good scenes and many that made me wince. Therefore I cannot recommend it to anyone.

I know from the likes of The Sorcerer and Iolanthe that D'Oyly Carte are capable of producing good Gilbert and Sullivan productions. It's just that they've also produced some disappointments like this, Pirates of Penzanze and Yeomen of the Guard. I love all of Gilbert and Sullivan's operettas, finding them witty and delightful with catchy tunes and appealing characters, so naturally I want productions of them to be just as much. Other than the musical values and a couple of good performances, I just didn't care at all for this HMS Pinafore. The orchestra apart from being too loud in places still played with a lively intent and the conducting was generally well-judged. Of the performances, I found the Buttercup of Della Jones to be the best. She does lack breath support but does show signs of a vocal ability and she is very funny and quite saucy in I'm Called Little Buttercup. Other standouts are the wickedly funny Deadeye of Alan Watt and Gordon Sandison like he did in The Mikado makes the role of the Bosun more interesting than it actually is. I did have mixed feelings on the chorus though, they sing well(especially the ladies) but they just lack energy, due to mediocre choreography mainly, having seen productions where the men literally don't stop moving. The production values seem lacking to me too, the sound is so muffled at times I was wondering whether my video recorder was broken and the picture quality gives the costumes and sets, which are not as amateurish as Pirates but even Yeomen had more handsome production values than here, a dated feel. The dialogue lacks wit often, and I think a lack of energy and the feeling(like Pirates) that the production was over-stretched or something had a lot to do with it. The rest of the cast disappoint also. Michael Bulman as Ralph and Meryl Drowser's Josephine are good singers, but together and in stage presence they are rather dull for my liking. Even more disappointing were the big names. Peter Marshall as the Captain doesn't have too bad a voice, however the whole performance just felt rather contrived. But my biggest problem was the Sir Joseph of Frankie Howerd, who for me is the biggest miscasting of the D'Oyly Carte G&S productions, even worse than Peter Allen in Pirates or Joel Grey in Yeomen(some may also say Vincent Price in Ruddigore, I thought despite his less-than-great singing he was delightful). Howerd just talks his way through the songs, and most of his performance consists of unfunny ad-libbing and mugging, which also slow the production down in my opinion. All in all, very disappointing, of a hit and miss series, this is a contender for the worst. 4/10 Bethany Cox

H.M.S. Pinafore is, in my opinion, the best so far that I've seen of the series. I really didn't mind either Frankie Howerd or Peter Marshall (Yes, that Peter Marshall!) though I agree that Frankie could have sung his part more and that Peter was a bit too goofy. But they both fit in with the style of the production. I liked the dancing and the youthful supporting cast and the singing generally and enjoyed the DVD extras interview with the producer Judith de Paul, Frankie and Peter. I also enjoyed the part following which showed the real sailing ships and their crews in Portsmouth to, in what seems to be the New York City OpSail celebration, the George Washington Bridge(?). I would have liked to know more about the choral vocals and how they were added to the dancing since it seems that the dancers were also the singers. It seems unlikely that they mostly did both at the same time since the dancing and acrobatics looked rather strenuous. 8 out of 10.