Patience

Patience was never one of my favourite G & S productions, but that was before I saw this version. The sets may be stylised and austere but the costumes are superb. The main characters give a lively and often very funny interpretation, after all it is meant to be a comic opera, which has been sadly lacking when I have seen it in the past. The singing is as good as it gets, and the set piece duets had me in stitches. Heather Begg, as Lady Jane was imposing but comic, and even survived a severe bout of corpsing towards the end when she accidentally knocked Bunthorn off his feet. Bunthorn, played by Dennis Olsen looks so delicate he is the very embodiment of an aesthete poet. Anthony Warlow plays his poetic competitor, Archibald Grosvenor, and their duet / dance fully warrants the encore. Christine Douglas, as Patience, has a lovely soprano voice when singing, and an intriguing accent in the spoken passages. The chorus do not just stand waiting for their turn to sing but look as if they listening and involved in the action.