Walking the plank

Raymond Gubbay presents the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, it says. But these "seasons" at the Savoy Theatre are beginning to seem more like hauntings by the ghost of a production past. Will it walk again? Is it a company? Tim Rogers's voiceless Frederic is more Lloyd Webber than D'Oyly Carte - his intonation veers from Brit to Yankee to Strine (where he originated). Though he fits his super-tight blue velvet pirate trousers and boots snugly, his singing is painfully fractured and his ability to play charm or pluck heart-strings is zero.

This Stuart Maunder staging of Pirates of Penzance, created for the lamented Victoria State Opera in 1993, was last seen at the Queens Theatre in 1998 with better stars and less dry ice. The Regents Park Pirates last summer (the Jo Papp New York version) was much livelier. But for G&S fans memory only needs the slightest nudge for rapture to ensue. The Gilbertian jokes and comfy rhyming couplets get laughs, even when crassly delivered.

Musically, Pirates is a strong delightful piece, though the satire on heredity is wearing out. It's well conducted here by John Owen Edwards and quite decently played. The long overture especially promised well. There are five creditable singers, but Stephen Davis's sturdy Samuel, Louise Crane's Edith and Michelle Lokey-Smid's Kate are not roles that can save the day. Charlotte Page, a graduate from real opera and from Lloyd Webber's Phantom, is well cast as Mabel, if only she had a Fred. Nice sound, brave top, very appealing. She makes the love duet work even though Rogers contributes little to its sweetness.

Gareth Jones as the Sergeant is even better than he was in 1988, and is almost the only credible link with D'Oyly Carte style on stage. Royce Mills makes a fair stab at the Major-General, and is basically a fine actor. But neither his singing nor his timing are really suitable for this kind of show. Patti Allison's Ruth is big and blousy, but also (like Tim Rogers) coarse and unsettlingly, vestigially, transatlantic. James Cleverton's Pirate King strains clumsily to cut a dashing figure.

The Pirates of Penzance