Take a famous film director who's made a clever, funny, visually rich and critically acclaimed film about an opera writing duo ... and get him to create your latest production of one of their best-known operas. Which is the simple brilliance of how we got to Mike Leigh's glorious Pirates of Penzance at the English National Opera.
It's funny, beautiful and artfully performed. It will send you home humming, and thinking "I really must get to more Gilbert and Sullivan." Which is precisely how I felt after seeing The Mikado here two years ago. And, like that 39-year-old production, the new Pirates from the director of Topsy-Turvy, this show looks set to run and run.
He mixes a visually arresting set of bold, primary colours and stark geometric shapes with traditional Victorian costume. It shouldn't work, but it does. The plain sets accentuate the beautiful costumes, and the contrast between the two gives the production the feel of a children's picture book. Which is particularly appropriate, since this show is filled with a simple, childish joy.
Pirate stories had gone from fashionable to hackneyed by the late Victorian period. By creating their laughable, loveable and outrageous pirate gang, Gilbert and Sullivan were doing the same piss-taking genre re-boot as Johnny Depp's Captain Jack Sparrow, but nearly a century sooner. The plot is foolishly ridiculous. A pirate apprentice who wants to leave his life of crime, unable to do so because of a silly technicality, in love with one of an impossible number of daughters belonging to a pompous but loveable major general. There are implausible twists and turns, humour full of political swipes and double entendre, rousing group numbers and heart-stirring love songs. Few modern musicals can match the delight it delivers. And it's all delivered by top voices who are strong actors and have perfect comic timing.
Try to get tickets if you can. It's on 'til 4 July. (Though will no doubt be back.)
I have only one complaint. Even the seats in the lower balcony at the ENO are brutally uncomfortable. There's no legroom at all, and the steep angle of seats means you can't even slip your feet beneath the seat in front of you. My delight at the show was countered by severe leg spasms 2/3rds through each act. Had I spotted the cinema broadcast option before I'd booked the tickets, that would have been a better option. But the pain was worth it. For this glorious show, I might even do it again. I'd certainly spend the extra cash to get on the main floor.
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