Topsy-Turvy

The film opens with a crisis in the career of the successful nineteenth-century British operetta duo Gilbert (lyrics) and Sullivan (music). Their latest production, Princess Ida, is not drawing audiences and Sullivan wants to break off their cooperation to dedicate himself to serious music. He has had enough of Gilbert’s ‘topsy-turvy’ situations – in which the world is turned upside down, bosses become knaves, etc. – and leaves for Paris. Fate is averted when Gilbert visits a major Japan exhibition at the insistence of his wife. He is very enthusiastic about this strange and extreme culture and has the revolutionary idea of writing a comic opera set in the most authentic possible Japanese setting. That leads to the creation of the inimitable The Mikado, that has been performed endlessly right up to the present day and filmed at least ten times since its première. Mike Leigh worked hard to realise Gilbert’s desire for an authentic Japanese style and both the nineteenth-century exhibition and the dressing of the original Mikado are unsurpassed examples of Japonaiserie. His historic musical costume production differs greatly from the contemporary, realistic ordinary-people dramas that have made him famous. Maybe, like his nineteenth-century predecessor W.S. Gilbert (who was also far ahead of his time in developing the métier of modern director), he needed a new and different impulse. GjZ