Gilbert & Sullivan: The Very Models

Remarkable cartoon on two remarkable geniuses which does them the great service of absolutely shattering the revolting dinosaur genteel image of Gilbert and Sullivan. The short, with remarkable, dizzying, inventive fluidity, details the biography and works of the great men using nothing but words and music from the opera. These are shown not to be refined and respectable, but dislocated, disturbed, disturbing, nightmarish, spleen-filled, savage, haunted by anger, fear, death. These seemingly artificial verses are tremendously versatile, terrifyingly witty, and provide the astounding animation with a motor of invention.

The portraits of the two men are hilarious, and the numbers are staged with such verve and shocking imagination, that you wish a)the animators would film a whole opera; and b)that all productions would reject the traditional dainty finery and explode into life like this. This film reveals the true heart of G&S simmering beneath the Victorian veneer, and is thus a great lesson, as well as delight, to all of us.