After Gilbert and Sullivan's latest play is critically panned, the frustrated team threatens to disband until Gilbert's wife, Lucy 'Kitty' Gilbert, drags him along to a Japanese exhibition, exposure to the very different culture begins inspiration to embark on the production of 'The Mikado.'
If you are a Gilbert and Sullivan buff, you will be in heaven. If you are not, the first thing you will need to know is that the film is nearly three hours long.
Film Threat
December 06, 2005
The real magic of this film is in the way most of the characters skillfully navigate their way around each other's sizable but fragile egos.
Leigh's strict attention to detail and his uncommon method of involving his actors in the creative process of forming the script infuses life into material that could have easily become another stiff, British period production
Leigh's cast are beyond compare, and the whole bighearted, splendidly droll celebration of the entertainer's lot surely stands among British cinema's one-of-a-kind treasures.
There is not an unrealized or extraneous character in the film, and I can't remember a movie that so completely studies the intricacies of bringing a production to the stage.
