The Mikado review - feels as fresh as paint

Coliseum, London
Jonathan Miller’s classic production of the Gilbert & Sullivan opera might be on its 14th revival but this fine cast make the evening hum

Jonathan Miller’s ageless ENO production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Mikado is beginning its 14th revival. The Coliseum performance on 6 December will be the 200th. Revivals always differ, but it is as fresh as paint this time. If you have never seen it, go. If, like me, it’s a decade or two since you last went, then go again.

Individual good things abound in this latest outing. But it is Miller’s production, part Noel Coward, part Marx Brothers, part Busby Berkeley tap-dance routine, with its grand hotel setting and its essential insight that The Mikado says infinitely more about England than it says about Japan, that still makes the evening hum. The Mikado is a wonderful score, with both Gilbert and, in particular, Sullivan stretching themselves to great effect, but Miller’s show liberates the piece to give of its best, as a good production should.

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