Rent Gilbert and Sullivan: Gondoliers (1990)

Singing, dancing and staging all excellent , but...?? - Gilbert and Sullivan: Gondoliers review by CH

As always, the Australian company and orchestra do magnificent justice to Gilbert and Sullivan's creation. Unfortunately, in this production, a large amount of extra , non G&S, material was introduced. Much of the alternative satirical material was completely incomprehensible to a viewer of 30 years later than this version. There was also a completely new and tiresomely long patter song given to the Plaza Toro family, which was fairly tuneless, not funny and very heavy-handed in its satire of , one presumes, the corrupt Australian politicians of 1989. This dates the whole performance, which is a shame, and just shows how well the original libretto stands up in modern times. Had it not been for the extra stuff, I would have given the whole performance 5 stars.