This is a production which was very familiar to me in the past. I saw it in person years ago but I don't remember where or even if it was in the US or UK. (Probably the US at City Center.)
I think it's, no doubt, unfair of me to expect the actors to really look like the characters they are playing so I won't mention it (;-)) but I liked Sandra Dugdale in the title role and thought the dragoon guards were also good if rather elderly. In the song "Silvered is the ravened hair", Anne Collins both sings well and plays the cello fairly well. (In most productions, a string ensemble suffices. G and S, incidentally, were always quite cruel to old people.)
I enjoyed the sets (Having the resources of the Shepperton Studios at the producers' disposal allowed this production to go way beyond the expected stage sets.) and the pre-Raphaelite costumes and I thought the cymbals didn't obtrude too much. Derek Hammond-Stroud and John Fryatt as Archie were okay but since Bunthorne was, mostly, the young Oscar Wilde (who actually toured the US with this operetta.) I found Derek a bit of a stretch (or actually the opposite). But he carried the part off all right and Archie's appearance wasn't off the mark since the time of "Patience" was marked by "the Return to Camelot" (the title of a book I once read.) and many at the time dressed up in medieval costumes.
Fairbanks Jr. as usual read the introductions and his chuckling was annoying as ever.
Not ideal but one of the better of the series.
I think it's, no doubt, unfair of me to expect the actors to really look like the characters they are playing so I won't mention it (;-)) but I liked Sandra Dugdale in the title role and thought the dragoon guards were also good if rather elderly. In the song "Silvered is the ravened hair", Anne Collins both sings well and plays the cello fairly well. (In most productions, a string ensemble suffices. G and S, incidentally, were always quite cruel to old people.)
I enjoyed the sets (Having the resources of the Shepperton Studios at the producers' disposal allowed this production to go way beyond the expected stage sets.) and the pre-Raphaelite costumes and I thought the cymbals didn't obtrude too much. Derek Hammond-Stroud and John Fryatt as Archie were okay but since Bunthorne was, mostly, the young Oscar Wilde (who actually toured the US with this operetta.) I found Derek a bit of a stretch (or actually the opposite). But he carried the part off all right and Archie's appearance wasn't off the mark since the time of "Patience" was marked by "the Return to Camelot" (the title of a book I once read.) and many at the time dressed up in medieval costumes.
Fairbanks Jr. as usual read the introductions and his chuckling was annoying as ever.
Not ideal but one of the better of the series.