Chichester welcomed Tarantara Productions to its main stage once more with its one-off, semi-staged production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s comic operetta Iolanthe.

Tarantara are a relatively new company – founded in 2014 – whose objective is to introduce the G and S oeuvre to a wider, younger audience by putting on less formal concert-style stagings of their most well-known pieces.

The orchestra sits on the stage and the actors perform around them – wearing modern clothes with nods to the fairy costumes by way of golden capes and golden crowns for the Lords.

The action moves quickly and, as it is billed as a concert performance, you never really feel the absence of a set or props. All parts are played slickly and with excellent comic timing, but Keel Watson as Private Willis stole the show with his discombobulated reaction to the Fairy Queen’s advances.

The story-line is simple – Iolanthe was banished from the fairy world for ‘marrying’ a mortal. Her half-fairy / half-human son wants to marry a ward of the court, the beautiful Phyllis (elegantly portrayed by Victoria Joyce), but the Lord Chancellor forbids it as he wants her for himself.

After a deal of misunderstandings, all is resolved with a quick change in fairy law and the departure of the Lords to fairyland.

Emily Angus