The Gondoliers
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THE GONDOLIERS Brent Walker, 1982. (Copy under review released by Universal (UK) in 2004; other versions also available.) COMMENT First, the Brent Walker videos story: Stepney-born George Walker was a keen amateur boxer, good enough to become ABA light heavyweight champion by the age of 22. But after turning pro ("The Stepney Steamroller") and winning ten of sixteen bouts, an eye injury forced his premature retirement and he drifted into crime. On his release from Wormwood Scrubs after serving two and a half years for theft, Walker first developed his father-in-law's motor trade interests then moved into boxing management, guiding his younger brother Billy through the heavyweight ranks to challenge for (though not win) the British and European titles. The Walkers invested wisely (a night club, a dog track, catering outlets, property) and in 1974 George formed development company Brent Walker. The development then lucrative sale of north London's Brent Cross shopping centre established the company’s position, after which George sought further and more diverse investment opportunities – these would come to include Brighton Marina ("an English Venice"), two breweries and more than a thousand pubs, golf and hotel complexes across Europe, the William Hill and Mecca bookmaking chains, the Trocadero and Lyceum venues in Piccadilly Circus, a casino in Le Touquet and 1, 2, 3, 4 film production. Concerning the last-named, here, after his March 2011 death at the age of 81, is what his Daily Telegraph obituary had to say: One of Walker’s most colourful sidelines was his interest in cinema. At the Cannes film festival in 1977, he sat next to Joan Collins at lunch and cemented a deal which resulted in two money-spinning, if tasteless, vehicles for her charms, The Stud and The Bitch. His next project, by contrast [resulted in the recording of eleven] Gilbert and Sullivan works for television and video – Walker had been an opera fan since his boxing days. Headlined as the “great white hope” of the British film industry, Walker went on to rescue the ailing Goldcrest production company and to save Elstree studios from the bulldozer. Ironically, several of the charges later brought against him by the fraud squad [i.e. following his 1993 arrest, trial and subsequent acquittal] related 5 to film transactions. Nan Christie (Gianetta), Fiona Kimm (Tessa) To elaborate further on the G&S angle, here (slightly adapted) is Marc Shepherd: In the early 1980s ... Walker approached the D'Oyly Carte with the idea of taping all of the Company's productions on video. The Company agreed and even scheduled extra rehearsal time, but Walker changed his mind at the last minute and decided on studio productions instead. There were discussions about using the D'Oyly Carte chorus and possibly selected principals, but the project eventually went ahead with no D'Oyly Carte participation whatsoever. The productions featured the London Symphony Orchestra, (Alexander Faris conducting) and the Ambrosian Opera Chorus, supplemented with non-singing dancers on-screen. The principals were a mixed lot – light opera and other singers (Clive Revell in The Sorcerer and The Mikado, Peter Allen in Pirates), imported "guests" designed to increase marketability in the States (Peter Marshal in Pinafore, Frank Gorshin in Ida, William Conrad in The Mikado), some well-known British comedians / actors (Frankie Howerd in Trial and Pinafore, Vincent Price in Ruddigore, Alfred Marks in Yeomen) and a few former D'Oyly Carte stars (Donald Adams in The Sorcerer, Patience and Ruddigore, Gillian Knight in Pirates, Pamela Field in Iolanthe). Front: Eric Shilling (The Duke of Plaza-Toro), Keith Michell (Don Alhambra), Anne Collins (The Duchess), Back: Christopher Booth-Jones (Luiz), Sandra Dugdale (Casilda) The first five entries in the series – Pinafore, Pirates, Iolanthe, Mikado and Gondoliers – were shot during the summer of 1982. Six more productions – Sorcerer, Patience, Ida, Ruddigore, Yeomen and the double bill of Trial By Jury plus Cox & Box – were shot the following year. While each 1982 production was shot in one week, those made the next year were each allotted two, resulting in a noticeable improvement in production values. Quality in the series varies widely. While Sorcerer (see review), Pirates, Patience and Gondoliers are played relatively straight, Iolanthe and Ruddigore take advantage of video special effects and so are more controversial. Trial has an interpolated scene ... while Princess Ida is set (wholly unsuccessfully, in my view) as a “play within a play”. Pinafore, Mikado and Yeomen are all but ruined by poor casting and directorial blunders - the latter, because of its many cuts and Joel Grey's misjudged Jack Point, is surely the most reviled of the series, while Cox & Box may well be the best.6 Francis Egerton (Marco), Tom McDonnell (Giuseppe) Regarding cuts, this Gondoliers includes all songs fully and faithfully rendered with the single exception of For The Merriest Fellows Are We, which is shorn of its second verse. However, presumably to save time, several passages of dialogue are compressed from ten or twelve lines down to two or three, thus depriving viewers of some sharp typically Gilbertian repartee, though without ever harming narrative progression. As with the 1966 D'Oyly Carte Mikado film (see separate review), this is a performance shot on a sound stage, take by take, with no audience; an inherently sterile process that loses the frisson that generally attends live playing. This sense of flatness is emphasised by the muted sepia tones (see screenshots) that predominate throughout. But there's an upside, too, for the singing is clean and sparkling (everyone word perfect; the pre-recorded choral parts overdubbed), there's some intricate choreography making full use of a studio's greater space and we're also treated to much more variety of camera angle, framing and movement than filming on a single night in a crowded theatre necessarily allows. Thus, while filmed performances like this differ in essential and significant ways from live ones before a paying public, taken on their own merits, there's something to be said for them too. Thankfully free of any Frankie Howerd lame ducks, the company is uniformly sound, if a little more staid and reserved than they might have been, and the material surely warrants. But if you read into that the fact that, overall, I enjoyed this Brent Walker production, you'd be right. Not great, maybe (for that, try, rather, FPI's sizzling 2009 Buxton Festival-winning turn), but not bad either. RUNNING TIME Act One introduction (spoken to camera by Douglas Fair- banks Junior): 3:15, Act One: 1:01:29, Act Two spoken intro: 1:35, Act Two: 48:13, DVD total: 1:56:40 SUBTITLES No – but the DVD includes a 27 page libretto as performed in this production. RATING 16 * * * * * Sources 1 Wikipedia 2 Daily Telegraph obituary, 25 March 2011 3 Guardian obituary, 5 April 2011 4 www.boxrec.com 5 Ibid. 6 The G&S Discography at [email protected] with thanks to all .