PAST PRODUCTION

Gilbert and Sullivan had never sounded like this. Director Wilf Carter Mahne set The Mikado in Titipu, an imaginary Japanese town with its very own Union Buildings, where officials were preparing for the famous Aomori Nebuta Festival and corruption was quietly becoming official policy. What came out of it was a sharp, laugh-out-loud satire of South African politics, staged against the colour and spectacle of Japan's festival of giant illuminated floats. Mahne built the whole production around one old line: the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Under musical director Eraneé de Beer, David H. Bell and Rob Bowman's score was swinging from jazz and blues to gospel and big band, trading Victorian operetta for syncopated 1940s rhythm. Choreographer Pinto Ferreira was mixing the Charleston, jive, Electro Swing, hip hop and Afro groove with a touch of Japanese tradition, and his young, fearlessly energetic dancers were stepping out of the background and into the spotlight. From “A Wand'ring Minstrel, I” and “Three Little Maids” to Ko-Ko's “I've Got a Little List” and “Tit-Willow,” the stage didn't sit still for a second.

A Cast Fit for an Emperor Screen veteran Jacques Gombault (District 9, Silverton Siege) was ruling Titipu as the Mikado, while Full House favourite Rainy van Zyl, our Scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz, was wandering in as the minstrel Nanki-Poo. Daniellé Botes made her major-stage debut as Yum-Yum. Luigia Casaleggio was storming the stage as the formidable Katisha. And our own production manager, Gertjan Holtzhausen, was discovering as Ko-Ko that becoming Lord High Executioner is far easier than doing the job.

Five major productions since My Fair Lady in 2019, and we're nowhere near the final curtain. If Hot Mikado had you humming “Tit-Willow” all the way home, join our newsletter below and you'll hear about our next show before the tickets go on sale.