This is the best Sir Joseph I have ever seen. It's also the gayest crew in the history of the Queen's navy! For better or worse, this production is less of an operetta & more like a musical. My favorite scene is Sir Joseph's "Monarch of the Sea". Phenomenal in ever way!
He is excellent. I also appreciate Eric Donkin’s performance in the Stratford Festival recording from the early 80s. Two very different interpretations of the character.
This production is camped up to within an inch of its life and so many liberties have been taken with the music lyrics costumes and everything else. ; but despite the initial shock...I am loving it.
I went to junior high school with Drew Forsythe and he performed in this Operetta in 1965 (at the annual school play). He was a budding good Actor at that time and he is just brilliant in this version of 'Pinafore'. He really has taken the role very well and explored the comedy to brilliant effect...Well done, Drew! Even after so many years, you've still 'got it' to put the audience in stitches of laughter.
this is so brilliant. I can't believe it's 140 years old... it's so relevant to the joining of nepotism with a false sense of self congratulations that we see so often today.
I'd like to see the entire performance. The acting, dancing, singing and general sound is superb and the 'tweaks' to the action (and dialog, where appropriate) are well in the spirit of the performance. G&S would have approved!
I know it's a bit of a late response, but if you want to see the full performance, I've got a link to it ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-fDPj9yGMs1Q.html
I love how this demonstrates a lesson that might be difficult to swallow, but which remains true nonetheless: these civilian rules and beliefs would run the military into the ground. Egalitarianism and free-thinking, while lovely in other circumstances, will not bring in the results discipline and rigid hierarchy will. I don't like this conclusion, but it seems inescapable whether I like it or not :\.
+Henrik Bergenheim Consider this part: "It is a song I have composed for the use of the Royal Navy. It is designed to encourage independence of thought and action in the lower branches of the service (...)". It is true, from what I've read, that the American model of military training leads to people more capable of picking up the slack once they need to make decisions on their own. I've also heard that this works better than people losing it once the guy in charge bites it. Regardless - without military discipline, as far as I understand it, almost everything would fall apart. I've played enough MOBA games to know what it's like when people are just "doing their own thing"...
A balance must be achieved. One must a measure to improvise but also must also know when to follow orders and keep an understanding of hierarchical command. Some creativity is needed to solve problems of course when conventional means are proving unable or unavailable.
Pretty sure the english who had conquered 75% of the world didnt use HMS Pinifore as a guide book. This is a musical not a historical document. The english were brutal as fuck and killed anything that stood in their way including their own.
