Once again, Northcliff High School brings an entertaining musical to Durban. (Review by Caroline Smart)Every year, Northcliff High School in Johannesburg bring their annual musical to Durban where it has a short season in the Playhouse Drama always playing to loyal and supportive audiences. This is the school that produced Jonathan Roxmouth, who impressed audiences with his title role in Phantom of the Opera at The Teatro Theatre at Montecasino recently.
This year, 14 years on, the choice is Gilbert and Sullivan’s HMS Pinafore and the exuberant waving of the Union Jack flag at the end made me think it was chosen because the production dates coincided with Queen Elizabeth II’s Golden Jubilee. Another link would be one of the songs in the show which proclaims For He is an Englishman!.
Once again, I must record my commendation of this visionary school which actively supports the talents of its learners. The drama students get to appear in a major musical under the direction of their long-time skilled director Nick Jourdan; move away from their comfort zone of a home venue; go on tour and perform on a professional stage like the Playhouse Drama. Not many aspiring performers get to do this.
They also learn the challenges of preparing, performing and travelling with a large scale production. HMS Pinafore has a cast of at least 30 performers, 12 members of the technical/backstage team and four musicians. This is not to mention the production team back home of set builders, costume sewers, artists, painters and props makers. The costumes are attractive and the set features a revolve which offers different aspects of the vessel and is flanked by backdrops of other ships.
The last production was Thoroughly Modern Millie in 2011 when Robyn Johnson impressed me considerably in the lead role. In HMS Pinafore, she takes a supporting character while Ekene Nkadu (Miss Dorothy Brown in thoroughly Modern Millie) gives a sincere performance in a major role as Josephine, The Captain's Daughter.
In a Mr Bean take-off of Sir Joseph Porter, Gareth Meijsen pulled in the laughs while Alex de Bruyn as Captain Corcoran shows promise with a pleasing baritone. As Ralph Rackstraw, William Smit often tended to look a bit lost but Ntsako Mgiba as Dick Deadeye kept the energy going. The most impressive performance came from Kathryn Bankart as the feisty Buttercup
The story line is a true G&S convoluted process of dark secrets, unrequited love and a satire on the politics of the time. Nick Jourdan has introduced many elements of contemporary humour which found great favour with tonight’s audience.
HMS Pinafore offers considerable challenges from a dialogue, singing and dancing point of view and not all major characters rose to the occasion. However, occasional inaccurate harmonies, off-pitch entries, singers trying to reach notes out of their comfort range and a sailors’ hornpipe that isn’t quite together are small irritations in the overall achievement.
I mentioned loyal and supportive audiences. In the curtain call, the cast acknowledged one of Northcliff musicals’ most loyal supporters who had seen every one of their shows since she was four years old. Today was her 11th birthday so they invited her onto the stage to sing to her. The young girl was fairly overcome but it will surely be a memory she will cherish. A lovely touch!
HMS Pinafore runs from June 27 to 30 at 19h30 with extra performance on June 30 at 14h00 and July 1 at 15h00. Booking is at Computicket. – Caroline Smart
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