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Telegraph

Trial by Jury/A Matter of Misconduct!: Sparky proof that musical comedy is tricky to get right

Operetta rules in the current season at Scottish Opera: following the well-received Merry Widow comes a sparky double-bill of satire old and new, combining Gilbert and Sullivan's first hit, Trial by Jury of 1875, with the newly commissioned A Matter of Misconduct!, written by librettist Emma Jenkins and conductor Toby Hession around the topical travails of a scandal-hit politician. They make for a pungent and diverting couple of hours with plenty of laughs, even if they both prove that musical comedy is the most tricky of genres. The barbs of Gilbert's wit still hit their mark, in the judge's account of his rapid rise to fame, and his prejudiced running of this case of a breach of promise of marriage, so that he ends up with the jilted bride. But it is Sullivan's fluent, perfectly judged score that brings the story to life, with its effortless parodies of the opera composers of his day. The funny thing about parodies is that they are often just as hilarious if you don't know their origins; I loved Trial by Jury as a boy, long before I knew the Bellini ensemble sent up in 'A nice dilemma we have here'. In this modest updating by John Savourin, the courtroom has been turned into a TV game show (allowing a couple of female jurors, and a female Counsel to the Plaintiff), with Richard Stuart's frisky judge as its centrepiece on Wednesday, classically enunciated but no longer quite secure enough of pitch. The insouciant lyricism needed from the dastardly defendant Edwin was beyond Jamie MacDougall, so he blustered, while his opposite number the plaintiff Kira Kaplan won all hearts. A Matter of Misconduct! revolves round Sylvia Lawless's attempts at reputation management as Roger Penistone (the flamboyant Ross Cumming), candidate for the leadership of the party, copes with his errant wife Cherry, a wellness guru with a touch of Gwyneth and Meghan (Chloe Harris). The two pieces have overlapping casts, which on the night showed versatility but proved too demanding – in the second piece, MacDougall's Alastair Campbell/The Thick of It Scotsman was excellently hard-hitting, while Kaplan's frosty Lawless was too stretched by a range whose frequent top notes stopped the words working. Edward Jowie as Usher and then Press Secretary was strong in both pieces. There was positive audience reaction for some Scots-oriented jokes about motorhomes, but the tone shifted uneasily in a winsome husband-and-wife scene for the Penistones, 'Can we make it work?', where Toby Hession's effective motorik film-music score shifted into sub-Sondheim mode. Direction in both pieces, by Savourin in Trial by Jury and Laura Attridge in A Matter of Misconduct!, was slick and tight-knit, with designs by takis and lighting by Ben Pickersgill. Toby Hession conducted both pieces with flair, and D'Oyly Carte Opera were co-producers, taking the G&S legacy into a new generation. Further performances in Glasgow on May 16, Edinburgh on May 30 and June 6 and Opera Holland Park on June 24-26;