Review: HMS Pinafore
@ the Coliseum until February 7th 2026
Director: Cal McCrystal
Writers: Gilbert & Sullivan
Cast: Neal Davies, John Savournin, Thomas Atkins, Trevor Eliot Bowes & Mel Giedroyc
Sideshow Bob’s favourite opera takes centre stage at the Coliseum, starring a wealth of operatic talent and, for some baffling reason, Sue Perkins’ other professional half, who threatens to hurl the entire show overboard.
With the possible exception of The Pirates of Penzance, HMS Pinafore is arguably Gilbert & Sullivan’s most revered opera and it’s easy to see why. It’s a daft romp about love and class that satirises the political elite through a series of jocular ditties that are full of innuendo, half-rhymes and light social commentary that everyone can cheer or boo along to accordingly. First staged in 1878, it riffs on operatic conventions, jovially poking fun at the theatrical and political standards of the time, while also telling a love story that descends quite quickly into farce.
Cal McCrystal, as director, makes excellent use of the grand Coliseum stage, which rotates to allow the action to occur both on and below deck. The choreography of the musical sequences is impressive, and the performances of John Savournin as Captain Corcoran and Thomas Atkins as Ralph (think Fiennes, not Wiggum) Rackstraw, the male love interest of the piece, are full-throated and perfectly pitched. Savournin in particular has a wickedly dry sense of humour and comic timing, and he elevates a number of jokes that might have fallen flat in other hands. The ensemble is melodic and likeable, and there are lots of catchy little numbers. However… and it’s a biggie…
Giedroyc’s presence in this production is at best pointless and at worst a staggeringly irritating distraction. The “joke”, laboured to the point of the tedium, is that she is out of place in an opera; she can’t dance or sing (except she can, she just pretends not to be able to), and so she instead hams it up, gurning and playing to the basest impulses of the audience in some feeble attempt to make us laugh. Credit where credit’s due, most of the crowd seemed to lap it up and cheer out for more, but I found her schtick chronically unfunny and, frankly, an insult to the actual talent on stage, who had to contend with her constantly getting in the way and undermining them. Why the production chose to include such scenes is anyone’s guess, but the whole thing reeked of panto and not in an appealing or interesting way.
This is passable entertainment and some of the vocals are fantastic (even if the acoustics in the Coliseum aren’t quite up to snuff). Alas, for all of the inoffensive, mild comedy and perfectly enjoyable songs, it all feels a little low in energy, and Giedroyc's presence simply serves to highlight how undernourished much of it is. That she seems to have been catapulted in from a different show entirely and is unable to match everyone else’s tone is immensely grating and, though it is an artistic choice, she is often on the cusp of undermining the entire production.
HMS Pinafore does what it sets out to do well; unfortunately, what it sets out to do isn’t really for me.
Score: ⭐⭐