Topsy-Turvy **** (1999, Jim Broadbent, Allan Corduner, Dexter Fletcher, Timothy Spall) – Classic Movie Review 719

What’s this? Writer-director Mike Leigh, of Secrets & Lies fame, not making a film that’s full of biting social comment? Surely some mistake? But no. Leigh had long nurtured the idea of making a film about the English operetta specialists W.S. Gilbert and Sir Arthur Sullivan, focusing on a crucial period of their hugely successful lives.

With his delightful, richly costumed 1999 movie Topsy-Turvy, he finally achieved his dream. And fans of such  acclaimed British character stars as Jim Broadbent (who plays Gilbert), Allan Corduner (who plays Sullivan), Shirley Henderson (Leonora Braham, Yum-Yum), Kevin McKidd (Durward Lely, Nanki-Poo), Lesley Manville (Lucy Gilbert), Ron Cook (impresario Richard D’Oyly Carte) and Timothy Spall (Richard Temple, The Mikado) will be delighted to find that they (and, indeed, the rest of the cast) do all their own singing and playing. Spall, especially, reveals a vibrant baritone singing voice with his rumbustious portrayal of The Mikado, which is the film’s highlight.

In the story, Gilbert and Sullivan’s production of Princess Ida is attacked by the critics and their relationship is strained to breaking point. But their friends and associates try to get the duo back together, and they are inspired to write The Mikado, one of their greatest successes.

The beautiful-looking film was a double-Oscar-winner, for Best Costume Design (Lindy Hemming) and Best Makeup (Christine Blundell, Trefor Proud), with Leigh nominated for Best Original Screenplay and art director Eve Stewart and set decorator John Bush for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration.

Says Leigh, who nurtured the project for eight years before finally getting it made: ‘The popular musical theatre of the English-speaking world 120 years ago was dominated by W.S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan, two ebullient Londoners of contrasting temperament, whose battles gave us 14 delicious, bittersweet comic operas.

‘The impresario who presented these shows and built the Savoy Theatre [in The Strand in London] for them was Richard D’Oyly Carte and for thousands of British kids like me in the Fifties, the annual treat was the visit of the D’Oyly Carte opera company. We queued for tickets, we clapped the encores, we even bought the LPs. We memorised Gilbert’s hilarious words and went into our adult lives humming and whistling Sullivan’s infectious, lilting tunes.’

Says Jim Broadbent: ‘Mike first mentioned the project to me around 1994. He showed me a cartoon of Gilbert and said; ‘”You could play him.” Well, I did, but it was quite hard being him, I must admit. He wasn’t especially loved, though I hope you can see his vulnerability, which is part of his rudeness and cruelty. But I don’t think I would have liked to spend time with him.’

Stage star Allan Corduner is fortunately a talented musician, so he could handle Sullivan’s piano-playing with elegant ease. Handling a film director, though, was something new. ‘Mike certainly does things on his own terms,’ he says. ‘You start off on your own. I did five weeks with Mike, three days a week, before I even met any other person on the film. A couple of times I thought I’d be going to the airport and just fleeing the country. But at the end of the day, you find you’re in possession of everything you need to know about your character – and it just flies from there.’

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© Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Movie Review 719

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