Topsy-Turvy for Gilbert & Sullivan Fans

TOPSY-TURVY  (1999)

Directed by Mike Leigh

Pathé Films, 160 minutes, R (For brothel nudity, but I wasn’t corrupted)

★★★

 

When I was in junior high school, I made my only stage appearance in a production of H.M.S. Pinafore. I had pretty much forgotten about my short and inglorious acting career until recently seeing Topsy-Turvy, a look at the famed collaboration between librettist W(iliam) S(chwenck) Gilbert (Jim Broadbent) and composer Arthur Sullivan (Allan Corduner).

 

Most people either love Gilbert and Sullivan operettas or find them as embarrassing as soiled trousers. I’m in neither camp; in moderation I’m mildly amused, though I quickly OD on them. I was surprised when I first read that Mike Leigh directed this comic drama. Leigh is an unreconstructed lefty advocate of dumping the British monarchy and is more at home behind the camera of gritty working-class political dramas. It is its own testament to the enduring fame of Gilbert and Sullivan that he would indulge in such bourgeois pleasures.

 

"Topsy-turvy" is an archaic expression that means disorderly and upside down. That was the hallmark of Gilbert librettos that disrupted social convention. He was so famed for this that he appropriated topsy-turvy as a self-descriptor. Like any stratagem, though, overuse can turn a sockdolager into a pair of smelly gym socks. That’s the dilemma facing Gilbert and Sullivan in the film. Theirs was a wildly successful partnership, though they couldn’t stand each other and lived in different worlds. Gilbert was careless with money and often irreverent but he was also stubborn, impatient, and had an annoying talent for hearing only what he wished to hear. By contrast, Sullivan was a playboy, had aristocratic pretensions, wanted to write critically-acclaimed compositions, and dearly desired to see the back of Gilbert.

 

He almost got his shot. The duo is tapped out and revivals of past works are closing faster than a front door on a proselytizer. Even their actors are reaching the end of their respective ropes. You could run through a lot of pages of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders with a cast like the insecure Richard Temple (Timothy Spall), backstabber Rutland Barrington (Vincent Franklin), and tipsy Leonora Braham (Shirley Henderson). Both men are running out of patience talking someone down from a tantrum-du-jour or dealing with Savoy Theatre owner Richard D’Oyly Carte (Ron Cook) who cares only about putting fannies in the seats. Gilbert is nobody’s Mr. Sensitive and Sullivan has decided it's time to make critics realize he’s a musical genius.

 

Sullivan’s problem is that he’s not nearly as good at the highbrow stuff as with the low. For his part, Gilbert needs money, pays scant attention to Sullivan’s alternative plans, and wants Arthur to listen to his latest bit of topsy-turvy. That might have gone better had he not filled it with rehashed devices that made it cliché upon cliché. In short, Sullivan needs a dose of reality and if Gilbert wants to draw another salary, he needs something fresher than limp celery. Fortunately, a London exhibition of Japanese arts and crafts unleashes new creative energies. The Mikado opened in 1885 and proved to be their biggest hit (672 performances), even though it did crib from The Sorcerer (1877). Gilbert and Sullivan launched five more productions before Gilbert retired in 1897.  

 

Leigh's film is a bit of topsy-turvy in that he assumed audiences brought foreknowledge to the movie theater. If you don’t, you may find it tough going until you get a handle on personalities and circumstances. (They already had nine co-productions under their belts when the film picks up the story.) It’s also one of those movies in which considerable scenery is chewed by everyone on the screen. For me, Broadbent’s performance stands out, as do those from Spall, Eleanor David as Sullivan’s mistress, and Andy Serkis as fey choreographer John D’Auban. I can always do without the grating Shirley Henderson and 22 years on, some may find The Mikado culturally offensive.

 

It is, however, a visual treat whose critical awards came mostly for costuming, makeup, and art direction. In a sense, it’s like a Gilbert and Sullivan production in that it’s fun in places but inconsequential as a whole. But maybe I’m just bitter that agents didn’t call after my stint in H.M.S. Pinafore.

 

Rob Weir