Mike Leigh makes the preparation of The Mikado funny, absorbing and unexpectedly moving, with Jim Broadbent at the centre of an attentive ensemble. The historical detail occasionally slows the drama, but the people keep it worth our time.
Mike Leigh’s Topsy-Turvy is a funny, absorbing film about how much work goes into making light entertainment. We recommend it warmly, with a warning that its fascination with historical detail occasionally gets in the way of the people. Gilbert and Sullivan’s preparation of The Mikado supplies the story, but Leigh keeps making room for the company and its competing personalities. The rehearsals matter because he wants us to understand what these people do, including the effort that an audience is not supposed to notice.
Jim Broadbent’s W. S. Gilbert is exacting enough to make us grateful we are watching him rather than taking his instructions. Broadbent finds the comedy in his perfectionism, yet gives it a serious purpose: the work matters, and approximation will not do. Allan Corduner’s Sir Arthur Sullivan has the presence to make the partnership feel like an ongoing negotiation, with neither performer reduced to supplying reactions for the other. Leigh writes both men as people whose gifts do not make them straightforward company, and the actors resist asking us to forgive everything on account of the music.
The rehearsals are where the film most firmly earns its length. We were moved by these scenes, where the company’s patient work makes the musical numbers feel earned. Timothy Spall’s Richard Temple is funny without being treated as disposable comic relief, while the wider company keeps the two central figures from dominating every moment. There is pleasure in watching a film allow supporting actors time to establish how these people work, what they need from one another and how much patience the job requires.
Dick Pope’s lighting gives the musical performances a sense of occasion without making the people disappear into the spectacle. Eve Stewart’s production design supplies detailed Victorian surroundings, but the theatre remains recognisable as a workplace, with practical demands beneath its formality. Lindy Hemming’s costumes reinforce the propriety that makes the company’s less dignified behaviour funny. The detail is most effective when it helps us understand their working lives; simply admiring the reconstruction is a less absorbing way to spend an evening.
Carl Davis’s musical contribution gives the numbers the precision that all this preparatory effort demands. Robin Sales’s editing lets the performances take their time, usually the right decision: reducing them to extracts would make the preceding work seem strangely disproportionate. At 160 minutes, though, the film occasionally spends longer establishing the period than developing the drama. There are passages where we are ready to return to the people while Leigh is still absorbed in their surroundings.
We would take Leigh’s patient rehearsal scenes over another musical biography that hurries past the work to reach the applause. There is private unhappiness here too, and the comedy does not erase it or turn it into a convenient explanation of talent. His affection for theatrical people allows them to be tiring, vain and demanding without making their efforts seem ridiculous. No prior devotion to Gilbert and Sullivan is required, though some curiosity about how a performance gets made will help. Give it an uninterrupted evening, and allow for the occasional detour.
