East meets West head-on in this hilarious 1930’s-style update of a
Gilbert and Sullivan favourite.
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This was the first book musical I chose to direct and choreograph, having built confidence from the previous cabarets. Why this show? Well, I loved the fact it had the word 'hot' in the title which carried on a theme but mainly it had catchy jazzy tunes adapted from the traditional G&S Mikado, a fun/comedic storyline and some great characters.
I had a clear vision that I wanted to draw out the ban on flirting by setting the opening in a 'speakeasy', Nanki-Poo should be an 'outsider' - an awkwardly British Bertie Wooster type character, when everyone else was 'American' and I wanted to put a dance break in the middle of the 'Three Little Maids' .
We approached the rights holders about adding a 'Pencil Full Of Lead' by Paulo Nutini at the start, and inserting the dance break and they agreed! Fabulous... we were up and running.
The next challenge was if we set the show in a 'speakeasy' how do we then transport the cast and audience to the 'magical' world of Titpu?
Obvious! We insert rotating walls - on one side we created the walls of a speakeasy, and on the other we painted the representation of the famous blue and white Minton willow pattern ceramic design - which interestingly depicted a similar story to that of the Mikado At the end of the opening, the cast ran through' all at the same time, with a pagoda, cherry blossom tree and bridge all coming in at the same time et voila - immediately transported to another world.
I'll never forget the first night the transformation came together perfectly and the audience all applauded. It still remains one of my proudest creative moments - but it would never have been possible without the amazing production team I had as revolving walls was not an easy task in the Bridewell Theatre!
Photography by Michael Smith