Cal McCrystal’s joyous production is back at the Coliseum after five years and looking as fresh as new paint. It is not just because of topical additions to the cornucopia of gags – at one point we see a Nadine Dorries lookalike vainly beseeching entrance to the House of Lords – but because McCrystal and his team recognise that the secret of Iolanthe lies less in its satirical bite than in its spiralling absurdity. This is a world in which, rather as in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, mortals and immortals feverishly interact. Where HMS Pinafore looked too frail a barque to contain McCrystal’s boundless invention, this Gilbert and Sullivan comic opera is robust enough to absorb pantomime animals and Carry On-style double entendres.
The fairies, in this version, are lubricious pixies who can’t wait to get their hands on the bottle-throwing peers, who resemble a massed version of the Bullingdon Club. The visual and verbal jokes also come thick and fast. When the Lord Chancellor’s page tries to muscle in on the trio “Faint heart never won fair lady” he is literally sent flying. Attempting to squeeze his lordship’s foot into a recalcitrant shoe, the same page is asked, “Have you got the horn?”, to which he cheekily replies: “No, it’s just the way I’m sitting.”
