The Gentlemen of Titipu

I should have known better. I knew "The Gentlemen of Titipu" was animated. But I also knew that the inimitable Anna Russell voiced Katisha. "It can't be all that awful," I told myself.

WRONG.

This DVD is 45 minutes of almost pure drek. First of all, the plot of The Mikado is unnecessarily and stupidly twisted and perverted. Secondly, the presentation is "cute" in the same sense that "Yogi Bear" or "Magilla Gorilla" are "cute". At some points the urge to hurl is almost irresistible. Thirdly, the music (a term I use only out of convention) is so kitchy is to make Sullivan's music almost unrecognizable. Needless to say the musical numbers are jumbled totally out of order, often given new (and greatly inferior) words, and (in two words) utterly unattractive.

Anna Russell might as well not be in this thing. Her lines are mostly stupid (save the infrequent occasions on which Gilbert's words are actually used). She has made her voice so cartoony as to be unrecognizable as hers. Her witty presentation is gone, and what remains sounds as if she was doing a read-through so she could get paid.

Although his thing is clearly intended for children (who are mentally challenged), DO NOT SHOW THIS TO YOUR CHILDREN. OR ANY CHILDREN. OR ANYBODY ELSE, FOR THAT MATTER. It will give them a distorted idea of what Sullivan and Gilbert actually wrote and probably put them off the Savoy operas forever.

This is a terrible production. Its only redeeming feature is the lack of "bad" words. Do yourself a favor ... save your money. Burn any copy of this thing you run across. I'd give it a minus 10 stars if I could.

On paper this must have sounded like a wonderful idea! An animated tab version of Gilbert & Sullivan's best known work, THE MIKADO, cut down for a youth audience and starring Australia's clown princess, Anna Russell, who had already (in 1954) sung the Witch in a claymation version of Humperdinck's HANSEL AND GRETEL, as the Mikado's daughter-in-law intended, Katusha. How well I remember the first records I ever owned were plastic on cardboard picture discs of songs from THE MIKADO and H. M. S. PINAFORE! What could possibly go wrong? Well, start by turning the project over to Australia's version of Rankin and Bass, America's premiere poverty row animators who's supreme achievements were the Mr. Magoo cartoons, and allow them to shuffle the characters and "update" W. S. Gilbert's best known comedy lyrics with no sense of period or humor. Then reorchestrate the whole thing to sound like a bad John Denver special (not that there's *anything* wrong with a John Denver special(!), but his musical period and musical phrasing sound nothing like Sir Arthur Sullivan's!). What you are left with is essentially THE GENTLEMEN OF TITIPU; an attempt to retell the classic tale from the point of view, apparently, of the Mikado, with almost none of the original wit or musical sense. "Mia sama, mia sama..." indeed! ...and what a pity. This might have been a rare delight.

The Gentlemen of Titipu or The Mikado is a charming story, and the operetta by Gilbert and Sullivan is one of their best works. Add Anna Russell to the mix and this animated version could have been good, even with any cuts or whatnot. What we had however was a disaster, both as an adaptation of the story and operetta and on its own. I know that this was only 45 minutes, but I don't see that as an excuse to be as poor as it was. The structure of the story jumps around and skims over so much with none of the fun, heart or charm, even when I was familiar with the story I sometimes did have trouble following what was going on. It also manages to do what I deemed impossible and make G&S's music unappealing and almost unrecognisable even, the orchestration is so 70s synthesised music and did not fit with the story or animation style while of the singing voices only that of the Mikado's(rich and resonant, made me wish there was more for him) did much for me. On its own, it is every bit as bad. The animation is very flatly coloured and choppy, while most of the characters are decidedly bigger-than-life than you could possibly imagine, Katisha I can understand but Ko-Ko? The dialogue is not witty or funny in the slightest, it sounded awkward and like improvised mugging, the lyrics also managed to have a very repetitive feel. I didn't care for any of the characters, the funny characters(ie. KoKo) were embarrassingly unfunny, Nanki-Poo and Yum-Yum are far too bland to the point that they don't feel like they exist and Katisha is incredibly cartoon-ish with none of her character complexity coming out. You'd think Anna Russell would be good as Katisha, on paper she was perfect for the part but here she plays the character as too much of a parody and speak-sings all the way through her music(or what she has of it). All in all, really bad on its own as well as an adaptation. Sometimes you'll find something that has so-bad-its-good value, but there are also times when something comes along that is much too infuriating to be classed in that way and The Gentlemen of Titipu is one such example. 1/10 and only for the Mikado's singing voice. Bethany Cox