Review: The Zoo/Trial By Jury (Rosemary Branch Theatre)

Playing alongside The Mikado as part of a three-week Gilbert and Sullivan festival at the Rosemary Branch, Charles Court Opera present two one-act entertainments: the rarely-performed collaboration between Sullivan and D.C. Stephenson The Zoo (Charles Court is the only professional company in the country to have the piece in its repertoire) and Gilbert and Sullivan’s first work together Trial By Jury, often presented as an appertif to their full-length works. These are miniature gems that take zaniness to a new level under John Savournin’s direction.

The Zoo is a perfectly bonkers tale of botched suicide attempts, too much cake and love across the class divide taking place amongst the wild animals of London Zoo. When a courtship conducted via prescriptions goes wrong, humble apothecary Æsculapius Carboy (David Menezes), clad in an anorak and socks with sandals, plans to commit suicide in the bear pit having been denied permission to marry the wheezing, runny-nosed wealthy grocer’s daughter Laetitia (Catrine Kirkman).

Alongside this awkward, inexperienced couple is the disguised do-gooding Duke of Islington (aptly played by Savournin) and his love Eliza (Rosie Strobel), a refreshment seller with a busy social calendar who is rewarded for ensuring that everyone is well fed by becoming Duchess of Islington. It seems something of a pity that the riotously earthy Strobel wasn’t born in the Victorian era as she could have been a music hall sensation.

The second piece moves from Regent’s Park to the bear baiting of reality TV, ‘Charles Court on Camera’, the realm of the likes of Jerry Springer and Jeremy Kyle where it shouldn’t come as a surprise if the participants behave like animals if they’re treated as such. The audience is introduced by Martin Lamb’s floor manager to a familiar parade of grotesques in Kirkman’s blinged-up, knocked-up ‘Am I bovvered?’ bride Angelina, a struggle for her lawyer to present her as a delicate flower, Menezes as the groom, Edwin, who’s taken up with another woman and Strobel as her pink shell-suited mate, nudging her to “Show him what he’s missing, Ange.” A most unreal surprise is the leggy Savournin as Judge Judy in a power suit and Jenni Murray-style spectacles, more interested in powdering her nose than the nuances of the case.

This is English eccentricity with a surreal twist that would surely be unanimously declared by this jury as a triumph – all the original material in tact performed by wonderful singers with a few hip-hop moves added for good measure.