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Home , Allan Corduner, Annie Hall, Arthur Sullivan, Being John Malkovich, Career Girls, Debbie Chazen

December 8, 2009 (XIX:15) TOPSY-TURVY (1999, 160 min)

Directed and written by Mike Leigh Produced by Cinematography by Dick Pope Film Editing by Robin Sales Art Direction by Helen Scott Set Decoration by John Bush and Costume Design by Lindy Hemming

Allan Corduner...Sir Dexter Fletcher...Louis Sukie Smith...Clothilde Roger Heathcott...Banton Wendy Nottingham...Helen Lenoir Stefan Bednarczyk...Frank Cellier Geoffrey Hutchings...Armourer Timothy Spall...Richard Temple () Francis Lee...Butt Kimi Shaw...Spinner William Neenan...Cook Toksan Takahashi...Calligrapher Adam Searle...Shrimp Akemi Otani...Dancer ... (Ko-Ko) Kanako Morishita...Samisen Player ...W. S. Gilbert Theresa Watson...Maude Gilbert ...Lucy Gilbert Lavinia Bertram...Florence Gilbert Kate Doherty...Mrs. Judd Togo Igawa...First Kabuki Actor Kenneth Hadley...Pidgeon Eiji Kusuhara...Second Kabuki Actor Keeley Gainey...Maidservant

Ron Cook...Richard D'Oyly Carte Naoko Mori...Miss 'Sixpence Please' Eleanor David...Fanny Ronalds Eve Pearce...Gilbert's Mother Gary Yershon...Pianist in Brothel Neil Humphries...Boy Actor ...Madame Vincent Franklin...Rutland Barrington (Pooh-Bah) Julia Rayner...Mademoiselle Fromage Michael Simkins...Frederick Bovill Jenny Pickering...Second Prostitute ...Madame Leon Kevin McKidd...Durward Lely (Nanki-Poo) Cathy Sara... (Peep-Bo) Sam Kelly...Richard Barker Angela Curran...Miss Morton Charles Simon...Gilbert's Father Millie Gregory...Alice Philippe Constantin...Paris Waiter Jonathan Aris...Wilhelm David Neville...Dentist Andy Serkis...John D'Auban Matthew Mills...Walter Simmonds Mia Soteriou...Mrs. Russell Shirley Henderson...Leonora Braham (Yum-Yum) Louise Gold...Rosina Brandram (Katisha) Nicholas Woodeson...Mr. Seymour, Production Manager Shaun Glanville...Mr. Harris Nick Bartlett...Stage Hand Julian Bleach...Mr. Plank Gary Dunnington...Stage Hand Neil Salvage...Mr. Hurley Atkinson... (Pitti-Sing) Matt Bardock...Mr. Tripp Amanda Crossley...Emily, Jessie's Maid Leigh—TOPSY-TURVY—2

Brid Brennan...Mad Woman (as Bríd Brennan) Case of Sherlock Holmes & Arthur Conan Doyle (2005), Vera Mark Benton...Mr. Price Drake (2004), The Merchant of (2004), Daniel Deronda Heather Craney...Miss Russell (2002), Zoe (2001), Joe Gould's Secret (2000), Kiss Kiss (Bang Julie Jupp...Miss Meadows Bang) (2000), Topsy-Turvy (1999), The Impostors (1998), Norma John Warnaby...Mr. Sanders Jean & Marilyn (1996), "Nostromo" (1996), Kacey Ainsworth...Miss Dorothea Fitzherbert (1993), Edward II (1991), Fat Man and Little Boy (1989), Talk Ashley Atus...Mr. Marchmont Radio (1988), Hearts of Fire (1987), Mandela (1987), Richard Attlee...Mr. Gordon (1983), The Return of the Soldier (1982), "Roots" (1981), Paul Barnhill...Mr. Flagstone "Wings" (1 episode, 1977), "Poldark" (1975). Nicholas Boulton...Mr. Conyngham Lorraine Brunning...Miss Jardine Jim Broadbent (24 May 1949, Lincoln, Lincolnshire, England, Simon Butteriss...Mr. Lewis UK—) has appeared in 111 films and TV series, including Harry Wayne Cater...Mr. Rhys Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II (2011), Harry Potter and Rosie Cavaliero...Miss Moore the Half-Blood Prince (2009), The Young Victoria (2009), Lost Michelle Chadwick...Miss Warren and Found (2008), Einstein and Eddington (2008), Indiana Jones Debbie Chazen...Miss Kingsley and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008), The Chronicles of Richard Coyle...Mr. Hammond Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005), Bridget Monica Dolan...Miss Barnes Jones: The Edge of Reason (2004), Sophie Duval...Miss Brown (2004), Vanity Fair (2004), Around the World in 80 Anna Francolini...Miss Biddles Days (2004), Nicholas Nickleby (2002), Gangs of Teresa Gallagher...Miss Coleford New York (2002), Moulin Rouge! (2001), Bridget Sarah Howe...Miss Woods Jones's Diary (2001), "The Peter Principle" (9 Ashley Jensen...Miss Tringham episodes, 1995-2000), Big Day (1999), Topsy-Turvy Gemma Page...Miss Langton- (1999), The Avengers (1998), Smilla's Sense of Snow James (1997), The Secret Agent (1996), Richard III (1995), Paul Rider...Mr. Bentley (1994), The Crying Game Mary Roscoe...Miss Carlyle (1992), Life Is Sweet (1991), Superman IV: The Steve Speirs...Mr. Kent Quest for Peace/Superman IV (1987), Silas Marner: Nicola Wainwright...Miss Betts The Weaver of Raveloe (1985), Brazil (1985), Time Angie Wallis...Miss Wilkinson Bandits (1981), The Dogs of War (1980), Breaking Kevin Walton...Mr. Evans Glass (1980), The Passage (1979), The Life Story of Baal (1978), The Shout (1978). Won Oscar: Best Actor in a : won for Best Costume Design (Lindy Supporting Role- Iris (2002). Hemming) and Best Makeup (Christine Blundell, Trefor Proud); nominated Best Art Direction-Set Decoration (Eve Stewart and Dick Pope (1947, Bromley, Kent, England, UK—) shot 42 films, John Bush), and Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the some of which are It's a Wonderful Afterlife (2010), Me and Screen (Mike Leigh); National Society of Film Critics Awards, Orson Welles (2008), Happy-Go-Lucky (2008), Honeydripper USA: Won Best Director (Mike Leigh) and Best Film (tied with (2007), Vera Drake (2004), Nicholas Nickleby (2002), All or Being ); New York Film Critics Circle Awards: Nothing (2002/I), Thirteen Conversations About One Thing won Best Director and Best Film (2001), The Way of the Gun (2000), Topsy-Turvy (1999), The Debt Collector (1999), (1997), Secrets & Lies Mike Leigh (20 February 1943, Salford, Greater Manchester, (1996), Nothing Personal (1995), Life's a Bitch (1995), An England, UK—) has directed 21 films and written 16. Some of the Awfully Big Adventure (1995), Naked (1993), Life Is Sweet films he has directed are Happy-Go-Lucky (2008), Vera Drake (1991), The Girl in the Picture (1986), Punk and Its Aftershocks (2004), All or Nothing (2002/I), Topsy-Turvy (1999), Career Girls (1980), Women in Rock (1980). Nominated Oscar: Best (1997), Secrets & Lies (1996), Naked (1993), Life Is Sweet (1991), Achievement in Cinematography- The Illusionist (2007). High Hopes (1988), Meantime (1984), "" (6 episodes, 1973-1982), The Five Minute Films (1975), (1971). Nominated Oscar: Best Writing, Screenplay from Mike Leigh on Mike Leigh. Edited by Amy Raphael. Written Directly for the Screen- Secrets & Lies (1997); Faber and Faber, , 2008. Nominated Oscar: Best Director- Secrets & Lies (1997); Amy Raphael: Do you remember the first time you felt compelled Nominated Oscar: Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for to capture life on film? the Screen- Topsy-Turvy (2000); Nominated Oscar: Best Writing, Original Screenplay- Vera Drake (2005); Nominated Oscar: Best Mike Leigh: My grandpa’s funeral when I was twelve. There was Achievement in Directing- Vera Drake (2005); Nominated Oscar: thick snow, the place was crammed with Jews, some guys were Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen- Happy- struggling downstairs with the coffin. One of them had a Go-Lucky (2009). particularly long nose with a drip at the end of it. I remember standing there, thinking, ‘This would make a great film.’ At the (2 April 1950, , Sweden—) has age of twelve I didn’t have the vocabulary to think, ‘This is appeared in 84 films and TV series, some of which are Defiance cinema!’ But that was what I was experiencing. (2008), The Waiting Room (2007), Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007), The Last Days of the Raj (2007), The Strange Leigh—TOPSY-TURVY—3

Grandpa dying was a big deal for everybody. For reasons My journey through education went through quite different to do with who got what and that kind of rubbish, it caused phases. North Grecian Primary School was really very endless family rifts. It never personally involved me, but it was encouraging of creative activity. I edited a newspaper and wrote traumatic if only because I was acutely aware of what was going and directed my first play, Muddled Magic. I then didn’t manage on. People always said I was old for my age. I was clocking to get into Manchester Grammar School, where my father and grown-up relationships from a very early age, and I think that’s uncles had been, because I failed their exam (I didn’t know the massively important. I very clearly remember being in my difference between stalactites and stalagmites). Instead I attended parents’ flat in an old Victorian house in Manchester. We were Salford Grammar—Albert Finney had just left as I arrived—and only there till I was three: I was born in February 1943 and we there I became more of an anarchist….I went through some really moved in 1946. I certainly remember a lot of stuff from when my bad times, some to do with my father. Finally, I kind of screwed dad was in southern Africa during the war—I specifically up all academic activities and decided—partly because you could remember him coming back, because he was quite late. At the end do it without a full number of O-levels—to try for drama school. I of the war all medical officers were shipped to Bombay, to was very young, only seventeen. By an amazing fluke I not only process all the troops on their way back to the UK from the Far got into RADA, but they gave me a scholarship. It was very East. That was late 1945, early 1946. shocking, and not what my father or anyone else was expecting. In fact my old man was outraged by the Were you worried your father wouldn’t whole thing. come back? RADA was a continuation, in some No. But there was a kid in another flat ways, of the school experience. It was very whose dad wasn’t coming back. I didn’t prescriptive, very old-fashioned, set in its know what the war was. Nobody knew what ways and mostly uncreative. But it was anybody was doing in southern Africa. So it terrifically good news for me that I had that happened that it was safe. experience. On one level it kicked me off My sister wasn’t born until the end into the world of professional practice, but of 1945, so I spent a lot of time playing on on another it left me questioning procedure my own. While I’m a perfectly gregarious on a daily basis. It wasn’t till I took a person, I’m also a loner...As a child, in the foundation-year course at Camberwell Art 1940s, I used to get sent to stay with my School a little later that it dawned on me maternal grandparents in Hertfordshire. what the creative process is all about. They had moved there in 1940 after closing their butcher’s shop in Finsbury Park. How did your father figure in the bad times Grandpa used to breed chickens in the you describe? garden, which was, in a sense, going back to I have to say, with some mixed feelings, that his rural Lithuanian roots. He used to take my father was, for all kinds of me around farms and to the cattle market at understandable reasons, culpable of creating Hitchin…. some of my problems, which, curiously, have mutated from problems into my raison Were you a keen reader in your childhood? d être. As a primary-school kid I was a avid Absolutely. I read everything and anything, reader, but as I went into my teens, pressure from Just William and Molesworth to from my old man—to do homework all the Dickens. As a teenager my favourite H.G. time and not really have a social life at all, to Wells novel was The Bulpington of Blup; I found it fascinating do only academic work, to not ‘waste time’ drawing, to be sure because it’s about this guy, Theodore Bulpington, who has a that I’d go to university and be academic—made me less able to fantasy character called the Bulpington of Bulp. He is one of the do any of that. biggest wankers in literature (laughs). It’s great. But also this Although I’m not at all dyslexic, the pressure seemed to whole thing of having a private, alternative, interior world is create a short attention span when it came to reading. I still central to everything that I’ve made or done. occasionally have lapses now…. Some general truths about writers and film directors are unavoidable. Film directing is both gregarious and lonely. You do Did you fall out with your father? have to be bossy and you have to enjoy telling people what to do, All the time. I have to say that, without wanting to rake out to want to push people around and manipulate them. You have to skeletons, I had the most fraught teenage years. It was desperate— be a control freak. You inevitably have to be both involved and extremely violent and extremely bad news. I was even sent to a detached. All of these things apply to me. psychiatrist, which turned out to be a pleasant experience. He Paradoxically, the most solitary part of being a merely concluded that there was nothing wrong with me at all…. conventional writer is something I can’t, ultimately, deal with. At the same time, my old man was a great guy. I was Being alone, ruminating, procrastinating and so on is essential to devastated when he died prematurely in 1985. He was a writing. But for me, when it comes to the crunch, being fundamentalist NHS doctor. There were celebrations in my house productive and creative only flourishes in gregarious situations— when he got rid of his last inherited private patient. He was also a but if I’m honest, gregarious only when I’m in control (laughs). factory doctor. And he was a terrific doctor; I know because I’ve come across people he treated along the way. He was very direct Returning to your childhood for a moment, how did you respond and honest. He had great integrity. to the formality of your education? Leigh—TOPSY-TURVY—4

You were a creative child, always drawing, painting, making How long have you been an atheist? things. Did your father fundamentally dislike your love of art? For as long as I can remember. From a very early age religion just The truth of it is that being an artist was anathema to my old man. seemed to me like a game people play. His own father had been to art school in Russia and was a commercial artist who made his living colouring in photographs. But do you feel Jewish in a cultural or even political way? He was a very good miniaturist. But during the Depression no one In Two Thousand Years, when Tammy is asked that particular wanted photographs and Grandpa couldn’t feed the family. Later, question, she says, ‘well, I feel Jewish and I don’t feel Jewish. during the war, when everybody wanted framed pictures of sons I’ve never known what it is not to be Jewish.’ Another question is, killed on active service, he did very well. ‘When do you feel Jewish?’ Sometimes, by default, one feels very I rememberI used to be taken in the early 1950s to his Jewish. Yet when I’m in a very Jewish situation, I feel decidedly little factory. These bohemian guys and women were all chain- unJewish. It depends. smoking, talking ribald language and sitting at easels. They were It’s very easy and comfortable at this stage of my life and known as ‘The Artists’. I would be allowed to sit at an easel and of history to be Jewish and to be upfront about it. That’s a far cry bugger about. But for my father, being an artist was still from being part of ‘the Jewish scene.’ As a result of Two associated with a lack of income, and he couldn’t bear it. It Thousand Years, lots of Jewish organisations have wanted to frightened him to . It has taken me long time to realise all involve me. That Jewish scene is an alien world to me, though. this, but it seems obvious now….Much later, long after he was I’ve no desire to be any part of it. dead, I found out that after his matriculation from Manchester But it would certainly be wrong to the point of being Grammar, he wanted to read English at university. But it wasn’t disingenuous to suggest that my life is devoid of anything on—his family insisted he do medicine instead, In some ways he manifestly Jewish. It isn’t. Apart from , a number of was a man embarrassed by art. And being ‘arty’ was always used my very closest friends are not only Jewish but come from the in a pejorative way…. Zionist youth movement I was in. And, of course, at some level I’m always preoccupied with Jewish cultural things. For example, Were you angry as a teenager? I’ve read and cherished Isaac Bashevis Singer enormously over I was angry with the establishment and with my folks. But the last thirty years or so. teenagers in the 1950s were! Socially I was extremely active and gregarious. I was known early on as being a good laugh.I was a How Jewish do you feel on a specifically political level? committed member of the Habonim, the secular Jewish socialist- I’m a signatory to Jews for Justice for Palestinians, but on the Zionist youth movement.I was very happy in that context. By other hand, I’ve mostly kept a low profile. I’ve been in the closet about 1956 or 1957—when I was thirteen or fourteen —I was about it. Although you get a hint of these matters in Hard Labour, leader of a a team of younger kids. On a number of occasions I it hardly surfaces in my work. Deciding to do Two Thousand got kids together and put on plays with them. It’s no coincidence Years constituted a massive decision to come out and, in a certain that other alumni include Sacha Baron Cohen, David Baddiel, sense, stop hiding, if I’m honest; to gather a group of kindred Jonathan Freedland and Dan Patterson, who invented Whose Line spirits and say, ‘This is what we are.’ Having agreed to make up a Is It Anyway?, not to mention Arnold Wesker. We did a comedy play at the National , I felt that there was simply no point about Nasser. Nothing was written down but it was all very in showing up and doing another version of Abigail’s Party. I was structured. Having that leadership experience was great and has just formulating the ideas that developed into Two Thousand absolutely informed not only how I am but also how I’ve worked; Years when I went to see Kwame Kwei-Armah’s play Elmina’s everybody was open and democratic and working together Kitchen, which was set in Tottenham with a black cast. I towards a goal, the spirit of which goes right the way through my remember thinking, ‘I know what I’ve got to do. It’s clear. I’ve productions and the way I work. been thinking about it long enough.’ Of course, this was all about the collective ideology of My sister came to see Two Thousand Years in a state of the kibbutz. Habonim’s real objective was to get us young men some apprehension. She hadn’t picked up exactly what it was and women to emigrate to Israel and be kibbutzniks. At sixteen about, but she knew it was a play of a Jewish nature. So she came you’d be taken there on a subsidised trip. I had this wonderful to London—and she doesn’t come very much—specifically to see experience in the summer of 1960. We sailed the Med in a rusty it. Afterwards she thought it was great; she had been worrying that old ship, the Artzah, which like the Exodus had ben used for it was going to be all about our family in the 1950s. Of course, it smuggling Holocaust survivors a little over a decade earlier.We was, but not literally. It is not more or less personal than any of slept on the deck under the stars, sang and played guitars and my work. The ghetto mentality hang-up of hiding the fact that made love. We picked figs and olives on a couple of kibbutzim you’re Jewish is my problem, no one else’s. Its only us Jews who founded by members of Habonim. In one we watched Wajda’s have the fear of a yellow star on our gabardines and want to have Kanal projected onto a wall, with English and Hebrew subtitles. our noses fixed and change our names and be seen to be eating We visited Jerusalem—which was still divided then, so we didn’t pork or bacon sandwiches. To pretend we’re not Jewish. see the WailingWall—and we climbed Masada and swam in the Dead Sea. How do your sons feel about you being Jewish? Immediately after this I quit the movement, left home, Their mother, Alison Steadman, is not Jewish, so obviously went to RADA and walked away from Jewish life for ever. As they’re not Jewish. But they’ve got a Jewish background. They Buñuel said, ‘Thank I’m an atheist!’ I do maintain to this day know their relations in Manchester, their cousins and so on. very close friends—men and women—who date back to those ...They’re very relaxed about the Jewish thing—it’s part of what days. And, of course, I deal with all this in Two Thousand Years they’re about, but without really being involved with it in any (2005). way. They’re not hung up about it like I am. Thinking about it,

Leigh—TOPSY-TURVY—5

I’ve made a series of films that don’t, as it were, have a Woody more of an inspiration than an influence, really. Of course, I loved Allen factor—the little Jewish nerd syndrome. stuff like Richardson’s wonderfully evocative bus ride round my native Manchester and Saldford, or his hunt in Tom Jones, both Do you like ? beautifully photographed by Walter Lassally. It was great to see a It varies between blind adulation and deep loathing, depending on real world one could relate to depicted on the big screen. I’d spent which film you’re talking about. would be on my my childhood and teens loving British and Hollywood films but desert island with me; it you wanted to subject me to excruciating dreaming of a kind of movie where you’d see characters who torture, you’d send me there with a copy of . I were like you and me, warts and all. wouldn’t survive twenty-four hours. infuriated me Actually, just ahead of the New Wave proper came Jack because I thought we could all make films like that is someone Clayton’s Room at the Top, which I saw at the Rialto in Great would just give us a chance. I love and Cheetham Street, Salford 7. To walk out of the pictures into the Bullets Over Broadway. I like but prefer Hannah and real world you’d just been watching was a genuine breakthrough Her Sisters. I loved but can’t stand The Purple Rose of and very exciting. Laurence Harvey’s northern working-class lad Cairo. But to me Radio Days stand head and shoulders above all is an embarrassment! (Incidentally, I really admire Clayton’s the others. It’s terrific. And he’s a New Yorker, so it makes sense work. The Innocents, which was cut by my recent editor Jim for him to make Jewish films…. Clark, contains the most spine-chilling scene in all cinema.) But the thing about the British New Wave was that every Let’s return to your influences: you may not have been film was an adaptation of a book or a play, and, Bleak Moments particularly academic but it appears you were turned on by and notwithstanding, I realised early on that television and film during your formative years. somehow for me it was going to be all about making things up Very much so.People of my age will remember what a big deal it from scratch. In fact, one of the first films I saw in London was was at school when anyone came in and announced they had a Shadows by John Cassavetes, another director I’d cite as more of telly. Gradually everyone got one, but it took some time. Then this an inspiration than an influence. We learned that his actors were massive thing happened when the Coronation came along in 1953. improvising, that it had all been developed in a workshop It didn’t mean everyone got a telly but, still, it was a big issue. situation. For me, this was particularly intriguing, as our RADA What was known as ‘viewing’ became a major part of course was virtually devoid of improvisation work. our lives.… Over the years I’ve had mixed feelings about Cassavetes. Sometimes he was brilliant—I love The Killing of a Even before wanting to capture your grandpa’s funeral on film, Chinese Bookie, for example. But films like Husbands or, in did you always watch films and want to get behind the camera? particular, Gloria suffer from actors behaving like actors— I don’t know what chemistry happens to you when you watch a improvising as themselves, so what pours out of them is actor film, what makes it into a particular fascination for you. For all of behaviour, actor thoughts. Which doesn’t work for me. us, at one level, it’s the same thing: the film telling us a story and The other film that set me a-thinking in 1960 was 8 ½. our involvement in that. For me—and I have to say the same is Nobody on the shoot knew what the whole film was about or what true with all art—it’s bound up with a sense of wanting to do it, Fellini was up to. He kept it to himself, which struck a deep chord particularly with film and theatre, though more so with film. with me! All in all, going to movies of all kinds became my main I regard film as my natural habitat. It’s about the joy of activity…. what you can do with a camera, with the medium...but even before that, it’s about an exhilaration with people and places, with What about the theatre? wanting to grab hold of life and do something with it—to Well, my arrival in London coincided with the birth of Peter somehow make it, even though it already exists. Despite my Hall’s Royal Shakespeare Company….They became a major part enjoyment of pen and brush, it’s never been quite the same turn- of my life. on as making films. That’s the ultimate turn-on…. Topsy-Turvy (1999) What sort of work were you interested in at the time? What got You were taken to the theatre regularly as a child and the annual you excited? treat was, I believe, the visit of the D’Oyly Carte Company. As I’ve said, before I arrived in London in 1960, I’d virtually never seen a film that wasn’t in English. Suddenly, here was world cinema—Eisenstein, Fellini, Bergman, Satyajit Ray, Buñuel, Ozu and Kurosawa. The French cinema entered my life. Renoir became a major influence, René Clair, Vigo...The Nouvelle Vague was just happening. A Bout de Souffle blew me away; Les Quatre Cent Coups inspired the autobiographical film I was never to make; and the first time I saw Jules et Jim I was in love with somebody who was in love with somebody else—and we all fell in love with Jeanne Moreau! Truffaut became a hero. I love the fluidity of Jules et Jim, which is interesting when you consider the virtual absence of tracking shots in Bleak Moments. Godard and Truffaut were definite influences, Truffaut for his humanity, Godard for his opening my eyes to the notion of film as film, the ‘filmness’ of film. Whereas the British New Wave—Karel Reisz, Tony Richardson, Lindsey Anderson—were Leigh—TOPSY-TURVY—6

I remember being interviewed about this film by an upper-class when we were preparing the film, the BFI made a compilation of journalist. He thought it remarkable that someone from my three hours of footage, all shot in London between 1896—in other background—Jewish, provincial—should have been taken to see words, the minute the movie camera was invented—to 1901. That . I told him that had he gone to the was a decade out for us, but it was still very useful. Opera House in Manchester in the 1950s, or indeed any Hallé Helen Lenoir was a revelation for us. It turns out that she concert, he’d have found a massive number of Jews in the really was a career girl and a bachelor woman. She lived in a flat audience. on Buckingham Palace Road that she shared with another woman. In the working-class, Jewish East End in the 1920s and She was a prototype twentieth-century working woman. And ’30s everyone knew and sang Gilbert and Sullivan. It was part of there’s all that stuff about those two actresses…. the popular culture. Stephen Rea told me how navvies in pubs in west Belfast used to sing Gilbert and Sullivan. I remember being Once you decided upon a specific period, what challenged you in a pub in Manchester in 1969. After last orders we were going to next? go for a curry, but someone suggested going to the D’Oyly Carte Talking generally, the two main challenges of making the film night at the Press Club in Albert Square…. were: to put interesting characters on the screen by creating them organically but at the same time staying true to the real characters; Had it been on your mind to make a period film or was it and to be sure that the film didn’t fall into the typical biopic trap specifically Gilbert and Sullivan who caught your imagination? of not showing what Gilbert and Sullivan created. You may watch Up to 1992 I’d never done a period play or film, at which point I a film like Iris and understand that Iris Murdoch was a genius and did It’s a Great Big Shame!, which was a conscious exercise in a tortured soul, but you don’t actually experience what she wrote. doing a Victorian project. To answer the question: both. Well, one When we had made the film, there was a massive stand- was an excuse for the other. I have three thoughts about the off from the French and German backers. The German backer motivation of Topsy-Turvy. loved the backstage scenes but wanted to cut all the songs! One: above all, Gilbert and Sullivan would allow me to Unflinchingly I said not only did there have to be a reasonable take on the apparent genres of the biopic and the lavish costume amount of the actual music but also everything I had selected as drama without any risk of losing the very core of my films, which there for a dramatic reason. It as also important that the audience is character. got a chance to savour the treat of Gilbert and Sullivan’s work. Two: there’s no way I would have considered doing this if it was merely to deal with Gilbert and Sullivan. It could only Why didn’t the French like it? make sense if it was about something important to me, over and They hated it. They said only English and American audiences above them and their shows. It was time to turn the camera around would get it. In fact, they banned us from going to Cannes. They and look at what we all do. I felt Topsy-Turvy would be an said the French critics would eat me alive; it would be the end of excellent device for exploring matters to do with those of us who my career. I remain convinced to this day it would have done very are in the business of creating . Of course, I could well there. Here’s one of their objections to it: they said the scene make a film about film-makers, but for whatever reason I don’t in the Paris brothel was fake and unbelievable from aFrench really fancy it. perspective. Now, when we shot it we had two people from the Three: having read extensively about this world, deciding Institut Français on the set. And when it showed at the Paris Film to make a film was the next best thing to getting into a time Festival, I asked if anyone in the audience thought the brothel machine to go back and see what it was like. I think we did that in scene was in any way unbelievable. Not a soul in two screenings a way. That was certainly part of the buzz of it. It’s a buzz I get thought so. anyway when a film starts coming together and a reality starts to Another anecdote: in 1997, before making Topsy-Turvy, exist; in Vera Drake and It’s a Great Big Shame!, when you’ve I was on the jury at Cannes. It was the fiftieth anniversary. A suddenly got these 1950 and 1893 scenarios actually happening, lunch was held for the Palme d’Or winners. I found myself sitting it’s very exciting. And, of course, I’m fascinated by theatre. opposite the President of France, who was flanked by Chen Kaige and Gong Li, a fellow juror. To my left was Martin Scrosese and Why did you decide to focus on the mid 1880s in Topsy-Turvy? to my right was . We were chatting away I was never going to do a biopic where people aged unbelievably. and I asked Scorsese what he was up to. He said he’d been trying It’s not interesting. I prefer to drop anchor in one place. The only for years to make a biopic about the Gershwin brothers. I told him exception to that is Career Girls. So it made sense to focus on the I was hoping to make a film about Gilbert and Sullivan, period in which Sullivan says he doesn’t want to do any more whereupon Coppola immediately jumped up with great glee; his with ; he wants to move on and become serious. dad had been an MD [music director] round Broadway Obviously it’s a dramatic distillation of what really happened: and had been a huge fan. At some point during this well-oiled was a relative flop, there was a terrible heatwave, lunch I went to the loo, and there was Francis Ford Coppola was revived and they wrote The Mikado. And the singing ‘I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major General’ from famous Japanese village in would lend itself to what very loudly. Three years later he told our was clearly going to be a major theme: the tension between the disgruntled French backer that Topsy-Turvy was the best film of real and the artificial. 1999 and one of his favourite films ever.

It was also an interesting period in terms of advancing technology How did the Japanese feel about the film? and changing attitudes towards women, with Helen Lenoir Even though JVC put a big slice of money into the film, it was running the show. never released in Japan, and no one has ever explained why. It The late nineteenth century, heading toward the Edwardian period wasn’t released in Germany either; they didn’t think the audience and the First World War, experienced a massive period of change. Leigh—TOPSY-TURVY—7 would like it, although it was at the same time that The Pirates of We put an advert in that said, ‘Wanted: researcher Penzance [Die Piraten] played for two years in . Madness. for original British feature film. Must have knowledge of nineteenth-century social history, classical music and Victorian Did you ever entertain the idea of an Anglo-Japanese co- comic opera.’ We weren’t very hopeful. Guess how many replies production? we had? A huge amount: six hundred. Out of them, there were Yes. At one stage I had the idea for a really substantial Anglo- fifty-two serious, qualified candidates. It was extraordinary. The Japanese production, but plainly it wasn’t feasible. There was a person we chose had two music degrees, was ex-BBC library and Dutchman called Tannaker who went to Japan in 1883 and pulled all the rest of it. These things are essential…. out a hundred or so men, women and children—most of whom were on the run—and shipped them to London. He installed them You already had Jim Broadbent on board as Gilbert, but how in Humphrey’s Hall, on the site that is now occupied by Imperial hard was it to find Sullivan? College, and created the Japanese village that Gilbert visited. I It’s worth remembering that everything I’ve ever cast—with the wanted to tell the story from the Japanese point of view as well, possible exception of knowing I had to find a woman who could seeing their journey from Nagasaki. But it wasn’t to be. play the central character of an abortionist—starts from the We also went to Quantel to look at the digital premise that you hire an actor and then invent the character. with possibilities. We were trying to work out whether it would be Topsy-Turvy we had to find an actor who could not only play cheaper to build a set or digitally create the sequence where Sullivan but could also look like him. And who could play the Gilbert walks down the Strand with hundreds of people and piano consummately and had a real grasp of music—classical carriages...All pipe dreams. music at that…. There were so many versions of the film in my mind. Gilbert in his steam yacht, Sullivan at the races; it was all there in How was it working with over a hundred actors? the first draft of my shooting It was a massively complicated script, but we couldn’t afford thing to rehearse, technically…. the time or the money. I think it was for the better. When you I’ve said before, but in your films are actually dealing with reality more than in those by other as opposed to characters you’ve directors it’s very hard to imagine created for a metaphor, you other actors playing any of those tend to get so bogged down in parts. the reality you can’t see the That’s right. What’s important with wood for the trees. I think what Topsy-Turvy viewing it in the I finally managed to do was to context of its siblings, is that the distil it down so that it became a actors have all created these metaphor. It’s still longer than any film I’ve made, and some characters—irrespective of the fact that they’re all drawn from people think it’s too long. I don’t agree, as it happens. It was history. They have still taken possession of them. It therefore much longer—there are all sorts of excised sequences. achieves that status of inevitability to which you refer….

Long though it is, it must have been very painful to cut, given that Despite the budget, he film ended up looking sumptuous. It’s it was close to your heart. rather strange, then, to see your recurring themes—growing old, Well, it was closer to my heart than any other film, but I didn’t not having children, relationships, et. al.—addressed in a ‘glossy’ want to cut things that worked. It did reach a point where there film. I’m thinking of something like the scene with Gilbert and was a stand-off about the length. In fact, there was a terrible battle Kitty at the end, as she sits in bed feeling dejected, hurt and in this very room, with lots of people shouting and screaming. In unloved, which perfectly illustrates what you’re saying about the end we all agreed on 159 minutes, which was fine for me, but Topsy-Turvy as a film about people. what was painful was that we were contractually obliged to supply Yes, yes. And that scene was a creative flight of fancy. I worked a two-hour version for in-flight screenings. Anyone could have with Lesley Manville and pushed a long way to get that. What she supervised this, but I took the responsibility myself. It was so coming out with has got a damn sight more to do with Fellini than awful it wasn’t even painful. If anyone ever says to me, ‘I love Gilbert and Sullivan…. Topsy-Turvy, I saw it on a plane,’ I entreat them to see it again….

Did you feel as though you had to wait until you’d had a certain Despite having to cut it and the budget being slashed, are you amount of experience before you could make such an epic film? happy with the way Topsy-Turvy turned out? Of course, I don’t think it’s an issue. There had never been an Yes, hugely. I’m very proud of it. It’s a massive achievement by a opportunity. I don’t think I’d been expecting it to happen at all. It great team of people on both sides of the camera. It’s just a happened naturally when it happened. The truth is that we were tragedy about Oslo. only licensed to do it by the success of Secrets & Lies. If you were to ask if I thought it was an advantage to have had that amount of Were you disappointed not even to be nominated for Best Director experience, the answer is definitely yes. at the Oscars? Not really. We got well-deserved craft awards. The only Oscars You may have been brought up with Gilbert and Sullivan, but we’ve ever won were those two, for costume and make-up for where did you start when it came to doing the research? Topsy-Turvy. It should have got the design award too, but that went to Sleepy Hollow. And why no best actor award? Leigh—TOPSY-TURVY—8

I’ve been nominated a few times for Best Director but costumers and others who bring The Mikado to life. This precise never won—you just don’t. Commercially, though, nothing is detail comes as a result of an enormous amount of detailed better in the world than getting an Oscar or a nomination—not for research, done, in fact, over a period of years. Indeed, Leigh's me personally but for the film. choice of Jim Broadbent for the role of the dyspeptic W. S. Gilbert dates back to 1992, when Leigh and Broadbent were Wheeler Winston Dixon, “Mike Leigh, Topsy-Turvy and the shooting the television film, “A Sense of History,” and Leigh Excavation of Memory suddenly visualized Broadbent as the Victorian lyricist in the Viewed by many as Mike Leigh's most conventional film, Topsy- middle of a take in his mind's eye. As Leigh recounted this Turvy (1999) in fact uses the conventions of the biographical “eureka” moment, “We were shooting that in January of 1992, the narrative film to expose the ruthlessness and insularity of the year we made Naked. We were on this farm, in sub-zero , at the same time as it chronicles, with great fidelity, temperatures, and he was just doing this bit. During the take, I the difficulties of a working relationship in the creative arts. Since suddenly just went, ‘Ping!: Gilbert’. And when we finished the many of Leigh's earlier films, such as Secrets & Lies (1996), film a few weeks later, I said to him, ‘Look, I have this idea which Naked (1993), Life Is Sweet (1990), High Hopes (1988), The Short is crazy and you won't believe it, but, I think you should play W. and Curlies (1987), Grown-Ups (1980), Abigail's Party (1977) S. Gilbert. And I'm gonna lend you some books.’” and Bleak Moments (1971), are superficially far more Unlike Leigh's other films, Topsy-Turvy is not only a experimental in their construction than Topsy-Turvy would seem work of social commentary, but also a site of new historicism, an to be, it is easy to mistake Topsy-Turvy as a departure from attempt to excavate the past before it evaporates from our Leigh's other work, and a potential sell-out to traditional cinematic collective consciousness. At a running time of 160 minutes, Leigh structure. But I would argue that in Topsy-Turvy Leigh is using has afforded himself a generous canvas for this project, and yet the same unsparing gaze that he employs in his earlier works to the completed film, correct down to last button and corset, cost reveal the structures behind the surfaces of the world of Gilbert only £10 million, most of it raised through pre-sales to a variety of and Sullivan, thus making them immediate and accessible to distributors, not least USA Films in the United States. contemporary audiences, along with the era they inhabited. Topsy- Leigh was riding a wave of comparative commercial Turvy is, in short, a radical work masquerading as a conventional success with the enthusiastic reception of Secrets & Lies in 1996, biopic, and shows Leigh striking out into new territory as a and the perhaps somewhat less adventurous Career Girls in 1997; filmmaker and social commentator. both were palpable hits on a modest scale. But Leigh's production Predictably, Leigh himself disagreed with those who process of organic development, in which the director generates found Topsy-Turvy a departure from his earlier work. For Leigh, the script with actors in a lengthy series of detailed improvisation “the suggestion that it's in a different genre from my other films is sessions, which are them formalized into a final script, is preposterous. It's exactly in the mode of its predecessors. Not only obviously inimical to Hollywood's script- and star-driven cinema, do I deal with character and stuff in the same way, but with the a cinematic template that the industry has no interest in exception of the use of flash-forwards, it's shot consistently in the abandoning. As producer Laura Ziskin of Fox 2000, the supposed same sort of style and it has the same approach to film narrative. 'art' film subsidiary of 20th Century Fox, condescendingly gushed: The surface differences are that it's period, and it's not, in the “I absolutely love his movies – it's mesmerizing filmmaking […] usual way, about . But people are people.” Though they aren't the kind of movies I can feed my machine The plot of the film is simplicity itself: Sir Arthur [emphasis added], there's a kind of life there that keeps all of us Sullivan (Allan Corduner) and William Schwenck “Willie” on our toes and, hopefully, affects our work.” Gilbert (Jim Broadbent) have come to a creative impasse. After a Indeed, Leigh's films don't even have titles until long string of light comedy musical hits, including The H.M.S. after the actual shooting is complete, and “scripts” are transcribed Pinafore and The Pirates of Penzance, Sullivan, who wants to from the film's dialogue track as an after-the-fact aide de memoire compose “serious music,” has grown tired of Gilbert's for public consumption only. Thus Leigh's films are, in the best increasingly contrived scenarios, as evidenced by the failure of sense of the term, a truly collaborative effort, in which the their latest collaboration, Princess Ida. As the fate of the D'Oyly finished film is the result of an enormous amount of detailed Carte Opera Company rests in their hands, Richard D'Oyly Carte analysis and research by the director, the actors, the set designer, (Ron Cook) and the company's manager, the level-headed Gilbert costumers and the entire rest of the company. In Topsy-Turvy, warily regards a Japanese fan, as the inspiration for The Mikado when Allan Corduner as Sir Arthur Sullivan plays , he is dawns on him. Helen Lenoir (Wendy Nottingham), attempts to actually performing; similarly, when he conducts the orchestra reason with Gilbert and Sullivan, but to no avail. It is only when within the film, he is actually leading a group of trained Gilbert's endlessly patient wife, Kitty (Lesley Manville), drags musicians. Gilbert to a touring exhibit of Japanese culture in Kensington that Topsy-Turvy came out at the same time that John the librettist rouses himself from his creative torpor. Madden's (1998) was still very much in the Surrounded by a world of eroticised costumes, samurai public consciousness, and contemporary reviewers at the time swords, Kabuki theatre and tea-drinking ceremonies, Gilbert is often compared the two films, a dubious enterprise at best. This transfixed by the spectacle. Returning home with a large samurai “serious” approach to the material extended not only to the sword as a souvenir of his outing, Gilbert furiously paces his extended rehearsal and dialogue workshop sessions, but also to study floor until he suddenly gets the inspiration for The Mikado, the costuming, which had to be correct down to the last detail, to which would become arguably the team's signature production. achieve a true sense of the physicality of the period. The balance of Topsy-Turvy lovingly documents (or re- Through this unswerving fidelity to the Victorian era, creates) the mechanics of producing the on the stage of Leigh makes Topsy-Turvy a direct and immediate film, which the , delving not only into the intricacies of partakes not only of the late 1880s in Britain, but also connects rehearsals and costuming, but also the personal lives of the actors, the past to such present-day conundrums as the pervasiveness of Leigh—TOPSY-TURVY—9 alcoholism, drug abuse, prostitution, and the seamier underside of cues than the action on stage. Following Gilbert's prompt book for social commerce – indeed these are problems that are always with The Mikado, Leigh faithfully recreated the original staging, us, but which are usually swept under the rug in most period “re- adding his own cinematic flourishes to the proceedings, but, creations”. One of the company's performers is an alcoholic; despite being a "closet Gilbert and Sullivan freak”, Leigh seems another featured star is a drug addict. Yet another is convinced of destined never to stay too far from his working-class roots. his indispensability to the company and demands a steep rise in Perhaps because of this, although the subject matter of salary. As Jim Hoberman notes, “the movie's surface ripples with Topsy-Turvy would seem to be inherently commercial, Leigh's emotional undercurrents.” The irascible Gilbert struggles with his approach to the material was resolutely personal, so that the film, actors to bring his script to life, importing three Japanese women despite lavish critical promise, enjoyed only moderate commercial from the exhibition in Kensington to instruct the female success. Nominated for a number of Academy Awards, the film performers on how to move about the stage, and pushing the male won only two: Best Costume Design and Best Make-Up, and leads through a contentious, yet ultimately successful dialogue wound up playing in “selected theatres” rather than a nationwide rehearsal. Richard D'Oyly Carte struggles to keep his two authors release pattern, both in the UK and the US. Curiously, although and the cast in line, while Sullivan is continually plagued by Topsy-Turvy was nominated for Best Picture, Leigh was not attacks of excruciating pain due to kidney stones, even as he leads nominated for Best Director, a peculiar oversight. the orchestra through his lilting score. In 2002, during an on-stage interview with Derek It is clear in Topsy-Turvy that Leigh is fascinated not Malcolm at the National Film theatre, Leigh expressed his only with the mechanics of theatrical presentation, but also with frustration at the continual marginalizing of his works. Asked by the complexities of the human heart. Gilbert's wife, Kitty, an audience member, “Do you ever get frustrated when your films desperately wants children, but Gilbert artfully evades her are shown only at selected cinemas?”, Leigh replied with some entreaties, even after the success of The heat: “I am totally frustrated by that. That's Mikado, leaving her alone to sleep in a never the intention. The idea that a film like room by herself, bereft of her husband's this, or any film I have ever made, should affection. Gilbert's home life is further be dumped in what are regarded as art complicated by his utterly balmy father, house cinemas isn't on. I am not concerned played by Charles Simon, who appears with making esoteric, obscure kinds of without warning on Gilbert's doorstep, films. These are films that can share and craving admittance, but refusing to ring talk to anybody about real things.” Indeed, the bell for fear of electrocution. Sullivan, Leigh intended Topsy-Turvy for the widest ever the bon vivant, finds escape in possible audience, even joking with Edward elaborately contrived meals, copious T. Jones that he was considering Arnold quantities of wine and the attentions of his Schwarzenegger for both roles, Gilbert and mistress, Fanny Ronalds (Eleanor David), as well as cavorting Sullivan, but that to do so “would create havoc with the budget”. with Parisian prostitutes. None of this, however, serves to distract Similarly, Leigh complained to Ryan Gilbey of The Express that Sullivan from the feeling that he is wasting his life on the “piffle” “as a filmmaker I never got the chance to work on a bigger that he concocts with Gilbert, even if these confections do allow canvas, and there was thus an unfulfilled need in me” that only a him to live his life in relatively luxury. Richard Temple (Timothy production on the relatively lavish scale of Topsy-Turvy could Spall), an ageing soloist who plays the part of the Mikado, is address. More tellingly, Leigh admitted to Larry Worth of The mortified when his signature song is cut; only the combined New York Post that “I thought it was about time that I did a proper remonstrations of the cast are sufficient to prevail upon Gilbert to movie. Just for the hell of it.” restore it. But even with a budget £10 million, Leigh couldn't resist There is a hothouse atmosphere of mutual need, sexual referring to the cost of Topsy-Turvy as “peanuts” on a number of tension, vanity, exploitation, fear and comradeship that drives the occasions, as if he wistfully envisioned even a larger project in his company forward, and Leigh teases out the fabric of these directorial future. Yet despite the fact that numerous critics placed interwoven lives until they become the central subject matter of the film on their top ten list for 1995, including , the film, while the actual performance sequences (from Princess David Sterritt, Janet Maslin, Mike Clark and Jim Hoberman, the Ida, The Sorcerer and The Mikado), the supposed culmination of film was, in the view of Barry Diller, chairman of USA Films, “a all this communal effort, seem paradoxically polished to a high box-office failure”. Indeed, the film returned only $6,201,757 in sheen, and yet less interesting than the backstage drama we have the United States, and did similarly bleak business worldwide, witnessed. As Leigh summarized his work in Topsy-Turvy, “it's despite the extensive critical praise, and the Academy really interesting to study people taking such trivial work so nominations. Speaking with Tom King of The Wall Street profoundly seriously”. Journal, Diller commented in typically oblique Hollywood In his cinematic interpretation of the operetta sequences, fashion that: “Mike Leigh is a very interesting director and we Leigh adopts an eccentric approach. While much of the on-stage thought the subject matter was more appealing than it was, but we action is staged in strict proscenium fashion, Leigh occasionally were wrong. The film is a wonderful movie. But I would consider cuts to tight close-ups of the actors' faces during public us a total failure if all we did is get on Top 10 lists and nobody performance, either to accentuate the inherent artificiality of stage came to see these movies. Like anything, it's either an artful dodge “projection” (as in the “Daughter-in-Law Elect” number), or to or an artful balance.” convey the inner turmoil of some of the actors as they struggle to Sadly, the film is already out of print on DVD in the maintain their stage presence through a haze of drugs or alcohol. United States, mute testimony to its failure to capture the attention During the excerpts from The Sorcerer, Leigh seems more of the American spectacle-driven public – indeed, I found my intrigued with the timing of off-stage sound and visual effects copy of the film ignominiously piled in a close-out bin at Wal- Leigh—TOPSY-TURVY—10

Mart. A critical success, a commercial failure: this was how the many ruptures and breaks that form the fabric of British society, industry ultimately judged Topsy-Turvy. Thus, it seems unlikely past and present, which ultimately, and transcendentally, informs that Leigh will ever be given a blank cheque to make exactly the the work of Mike Leigh. sort of film he wants if he ventures beyond the £10 million budget mark, no matter how many kudos he receives. And yet Leigh, despite moments of wishing for mainstream success, remains H.L. Mencken, “The Passing of Gilbert (1836-1911), Baltimore resolutely his own man. In an interview accompanying the release Evening Sun 30 May 1911 of his latest film, the highly acclaimed Vera Drake (2004), Leigh How THE COMMON American conception of the English, as a noted that, despite the financial pitfalls of his production method, stodgy and humorless folk, could so long withstand the fact of the he only knew how to make Gilbert and Sullivan operas must ever remain one of the mysteries films one way: his own. of international misunderstanding. Here, indeed, was wit that In the final Aristophanes might have fathered; here was humor that Rabelais analysis, Topsy-Turvy is a might have been proud to own. And yet it was the work of a deeply modern film, at thorough and unmitigated Englishman -- of William Schwenck once part of the body of Gilbert, to wit -- a man born in the heart of London, and one who Leigh's work, even as its seldom passed, in all his 75 years, out of hearing of Bow Bells. chronological distance Gilbert died yesterday -- perhaps 15 years too late. His career superficially suggests that really ended in 1896, when he and Sir Arthur Sullivan wrote "The it will be a conventional Grand Duke", their last joint work. They had quarreled before -- film biography. Rather, and made up. Now they quarreled for good. Sullivan, searching Topsy-Turvy is an about for a new partner, found that there was but one Gilbert. investigation into the , Comyns Carr and tried their social, political, sexual and hands and failed. And theatrical economies of the Gilbert himself, seeking a Victorian era, meticulously new Sullivan, learned that a researched and presented, new Sullivan was not be as Leigh hoped, as if it found. came were a documentary. nearest -- but "The Emerald Leigh's inherent socialism Isle" was still miles from is everywhere apparent in the film, yet he seems equally "The Mikado." sympathetic to all of his characters, whether at the top of the The Gilbert and Sullivan pecking order, or merely members of the chorus. partnership, in truth, was And yet the last word is ultimately Leigh's, as he re- absolutely unique. One looks imagines the emotional landscape of Victorian England in a in vain for parallels. manner that is accessible and direct for contemporary audiences. Beaumont and Fletcher, Leigh's Vera Drake follows in the path of Topsy-Turvy in Meilhac and Halevy, the the fact that it, too, is a period piece, and it may be that, as Leigh Goncourts -- these come to has become comfortable with his work as a filmmaker, he feels mind, but differences at once drawn to re-present the past in light of present social expectations, appear. Sullivan, without rather than living exclusively in the present. In an interview Gilbert, seemed to lose the gift of melody, and Gilbert, without during the release of Vera Drake, Leigh connected Vera's work as Sullivan was parted from that exquisite humor which made him, an abortionist with his own father's experience as a general even above Mark Twain, the merrymaker of his generation. The practitioner in the 1950s. Sean O'Hagan noted that Leigh's father two men, working together for 15 years, found it impossible, after did admit to his son that he had occasionally practiced euthanasia, their separation, to work alone. Sullivan, cast adrift, took to the administering lethal morphine shots to very old, very sick writing of and presently died. Gilbert settled down as a patients. Leigh: “He put people out of their misery. Absolutely, London magistrate and convulsed the world no longer. but it was not a moral dilemma to him. He saw it as something The great quality of Gilbert's humor was its undying freshness, an that was positive, that had to be done, that was merciful. In that apparent spontaneity which familiarity could not stale . . . "The way, he was not unlike Vera []. “ Mikado" was given in Baltimore last year without the change of a So, in a sense, Mike Leigh has begun to mine his own line. Not one of Gilbert's jests of 1885 was omitted; not a single past, as well as the past of British culture as a whole. But whether "local hit" was inserted to help out the comedians. And yet, after a viewing Victorian London in the 1880s, the same metropolis in quarter of a century, how delightfully brisk and breezy it seemed! the bleak post-war 1950s, or an equally drab London in the first How the crowds laughed once more at Pooh Bah's grotesque years of the 21st century, Mike Leigh's vision is both unique and speeches and at the Mikado's incomparable song! And how original, and a testament to the worth and life of the individual Sullivan's tripping music tickled the ear! artist in an otherwise industrialised regime. His approach to his The world will be a long while forgetting Gilbert and Sullivan. work, and his execution of it, means that Leigh will forever be an Every spring their great works will be revived. At this very outsider to the mainstream cinema, looking in, which is moment "Pinafore", now 23 years old, is under way in New York. paradoxically the best position for Leigh to be in. In real life, as in They made enormous contributions to the pleasure of the race. his films, Leigh requires some distance to effectively chronicle the They left the world merrier than they found it. They were men society that he is, somewhat reluctantly, a part of. Only someone whose lives were rich with honest striving and high achievement looking in from the outside could so effectively document the and useful service. Leigh—TOPSY-TURVY—11

Gilbert. Sullivan also wrote for the theatre, a great deal of information on the two and their work at The operas and ballet scores. Gilbert and Sullivan Archive website: http://math.boisestate.edu/GaS/ Orchestral and Choral Music Sullivan’s music for the concert hall has been largely eclipsed by Arthur Sullivan (1842-1900) (Naxos.com): his successful collaboration with W.S. Gilbert. His compositions The name of Arthur Sullivan is include his Irish Symphony, a Cello Concerto, and indissolubly wedded with that oratorios, and settings of the in addition to works of W.S. Gilbert, with whom he intended to mark public occasions. The orchestral wrote a succession of was devised by as a comic ballet, drawing on that have remained a popular the Gilbert and Sullivan operettas. part of English national repertoire. They were for many Major works and original London runs (Wikipedia): years the sole property of the • , or, The Gods Grown Old (1871) 63 performances company founded for their • (1875) 131 performances performance by Richard • The Sorcerer (1877) 178 performances D’Oyly Carte, who later built • H.M.S. Pinafore, or, The Lass That Loved a Sailor (1878) 571 the Savoy Theatre in London performances for the performance of what • The Pirates of Penzance, or, The Slave of Duty (1879) 363 became the Savoy Operas. The performances national institution that Gilbert • The Martyr of Antioch () (1880) (Gilbert modified the and Sullivan have become has poem by ) drawn attention away from • , or Bunthorne's Bride (1881) 578 performances Sullivan’s more serious work. • , or, The Peer and the Peri (1882) 398 performances He was knighted in 1883. • Princess Ida, or, Castle Adamant (1884) 246 performances • The Mikado, or, The Town of Titipu (1885) 672 performances Operettas and Other Stage Works • , or, The Witch's Curse (1887) 288 performances Operettas with words by Gilbert range from Trial by Jury in 1875 • , or, The Merryman and his Maid to in 1889, followed in 1893 by Utopia Limited (1888) 423 performances and, in 1896, by the lesser-known . HMS • The Gondoliers, or, The King of Barataria (1889) 554 Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance, Patience (with its satire on performances Oscar Wilde), the political satire Iolanthe, The Mikado, Ruddigore • Utopia, Limited, or, The Flowers of Progress (1893) 245 and The Yeomen of the Guard all continue to bear witness to the performances deft and witty music of Sullivan and the comic verbal talents of The Grand Duke, or, The Statutory Duel (1896) 123 performances

COMING UP IN BUFFALO FILM SEMINARS XX: Jan 12 Buster Keaton, The General 1921 Jan 19 Fritz Lang, The Testament of Dr. Mabuse 1933 Jan 26 Albert Lewin, The Picture of Dorian Gray 1945 Feb 2 Jules Dassin, Night and the City 1950 Feb 9 Charles Laughton, Night of the Hunter (1955) Feb 16 Kon Ichikawa,The Burmese Harp 1956 Feb 23 Sam Peckinpah, Ride the High Country 1962 Mar 2 Costa-Gavras Z 1969 Mar 16 Peter Yates, The Friends of Eddie Coyle 1973 Mar 23 John Cassavetes, A Woman Under the Influence 1974 Mar 30 Stanley Kubrick, The Shining 1980 Apr 6 Wolfgang Petersen, Das Boot 1981 Apr 13 , Ginger & Fred, 1985 Apr 20 Michael Mann, Collateral 2004 CONTACTS: ...email Diane Christian: [email protected] …email Bruce Jackson [email protected] ...for the series schedule, annotations, links and updates: http://buffalofilmseminars.com ...to subscribe to the weekly email informational notes, send an email to addto [email protected] ....for cast and crew info on any film: http://imdb.com/

The Buffalo Film Seminars are presented by the Market Arcade Film & Arts Center and State University of New York at Buffalo with support from the Robert and Patricia Colby Foundation and the Buffalo News