Trial by Jury and A Matter of Misconduct

Theatre Royal, Glasgow 14/5/25

Orchestra of Scottish Opera, Choruses of Trial by Jury & A Matter of Misconduct

Toby Hession (conductor, composer); Richard Suart (baritone); Kira Kaplan (soprano); Jamie MacDougall (tenor); Chloe Harris (mezzo-soprano); Edward Jowle (baritone); Ross Cumming (baritone)

Venue/Date:  Theatre Royal, Glasgow; 14/5/2025, 7:15 pm

A fortnight to the day after the opening night of Scottish Opera’s fabulous new co-production (with D’Oyly Carte Opera and Opera Holland Park) of Franz Lehár’s ‘The Merry Widow’, the double-bill of one-acters that complete the season-closing collaborative comic operetta trilogy opened in Glasgow’s Theatre Royal.   Gilbert and Sullivan’s ‘Trial by Jury’, first produced 150 years ago when it launched the formation of the D’Oyly Carte Opera Company, was followed after the interval by a new commission by Scottish Opera from composer Toby Hession and librettist Emma Jenkins, ‘A Matter of Misconduct’, conceived as a 21st-century topical response to the satire of political corruption, hypocrisy and legal absurdity in the Victorian farce of a century and a half before.  Toby Hession himself conducted the Orchestra of Scottish Opera, the Choruses of Trial by Jury & A Matter of Misconduct and the cast, with the same principals delivering roles in both operettas.  John Savournin, whose mafioso reimagining and pacey direction of the Lehár wowed two weeks ago, brought the same creative skillset to the G&S.  Another supremely gifted writer/director, Laura Attridge, whose direction of the Scottish Opera Highlights Autumn 2023 tour had included Toby’s hilarious 15-minute political satire scene for 4 voices and piano, ‘In Flagrante’, directed his larger-scale orchestrated one-acter.  As with the Lehár, the ingenious and sumptuous design was by takis, lighting by Ben Pickersgill, and choreography by Kally Lloyd-Jones.

‘Trial by Jury’ is reimagined as a TV reality show (not unlike Judge Judy or Judge Rinder) trying a (very Victorian) suit of.’Breach of Promise’.  Richard Suart, who has made a career of comic baritone roles, specialising in G&S, played the Learned Judge, in a characterisation that drew much from the on-camera persona of Bruce Forsyth, with fine comic timing.  His patter song revealing his sleazy career path to the bench (a prototype for similar numbers in most subsequent G&S operettas) was very good, with little or no need to glance at the surtitles.  The court ‘Usher’ of the original is recast as a floor/security manager of the courtroom set (complete with ‘Applause’, ‘Boo’ and ‘On Air’ lit signs).  English bass-baritone Edward Jowle (SO Emerging Artist, PC Budd in ‘Albert Herring’ last October and a cameo as stage technician in ‘The Makropulos Affair’in February) strove to keep order as the topsy-turvy absurdity unfolded, displaying.  a fine baritone whose “Silence in court!” rang out clearly amidst the ensemble fortes.  The role of the Plaintiff,  ‘broken flower’ and jilted bride (still in bridal gown) Angelina, was played by American soprano Kira Kaplan (SO Emerging Artist and a delicious coloratura as schoolteacher Miss Wordsworth in ‘Albert Herring’), with her bevy of 6 attendant bridesmaids suborning the admiration and sympathy of the male jurors and the judge, professing undiminished love for the Defendant in the hope of securing a greater award of damages.  Great to hear that voice again.  National treasure, tenor Jamie MacDougall, was the feckless, hapless Defendant, Edwin.  Even before two arias telling of his inconstancy and how, given the changeability and flux of the natural world, contrary expectations would be unrealistic, the court is stacked against him.  Remembering (to choose just two recent examples of his excellent comic characterisations) the Spy in ‘Marx in London!’and the pompous Mayor, Mr Upfold, in ‘Albert Herring’, this was another example, particularly hilarious as he indulges in self-character assassination in the hope of minimising the damages due to Angelina, on the grounds of her ‘lucky escape’.  He offers to marry both the jilted Angelina and his new love, a solution accepted by the ‘Learned’ Judge until the Counsel for the Plaintiff points out that bigamy is illegal.  In this production, Counsel (a lyric baritone in the original) is transposed to the mezzo-soprano tessitura and is played by Australian mezzo Chloe Harris (a charismatic Nancy the baker’s daughter in ‘Albert Herring’).  She played the role straight and pompously dignified (which makes it funnier), indisputably more learned than the Learned Judge, but with diminished gravitas when she refers to bigamy as ‘burglaree’.  The outcome: the wealthy Learned Judge offers to marry Angelina himself; she accepts, delighted to be marrying into money.  As the Usher sings: “It seems to me, sir, Of such as she, sir, A judge is he, sir, And a good judge too!“

I have to own that ‘Trial by Jury’ has never hitherto been a favourite G&S of mine, considering it as too short, too silly and devoid of a single genuine romance or love-song.  Not that Sullivan’s music is anything other than delightful (excerpts made the cut for MacKerras’ ‘Pineapple Poll’ after all); nor that Gilbert’s verbal ingenuity is any less scintillating than in the bigger, later hits.  But, as I have also had reason to remark over the last couple of years, almost always prompted by a Scottish Opera comic opera production (such as Albert Herring), all that is needed to lift a tired clichéed comedy to a new level of excellence is a fresh shared creative vision of director, designers and choreographer to assemble a treat of visual humour.  And that is what we got, equal to the aural delights.  The chorus of bridesmaids, studio staff and jurors, trained by Susannah Wapshott, repaid Sullivan’s trust with flawless delivery of the parodic (yet artistically very satisfying) harmony and counterpoint.  But for the ingenuity of the visual humour, I will concentrate on the bridesmaids.  First, they were often arranged to accentuate their difference in heights.  Their matching flouncy layered frocks were of a material that seemed to reflect blues, reds and purples under different lighting conditions and managed to simultaneously look fabulous and hilariously hideous.  Flouncy too were their perfectly coordinated movements about the stage.  It was their choreographed chorus, though, that had me in the most helpless stitches, perfectly coordinated yet hilariously ungainly, made even funnier by First Bridesmaid (mezzo Amy J Payne, Olga Kromov in ‘The Merry Widow’) calling out the steps in a raucous voice.  For me, the bridesmaids ‘made’ the production.  Even if Trial by Jury’ will never be a favourite G&S for me, I shall also never forget those bridesmaids.

It has been my pleasure to follow the career of Scottish baritone Ross Cumming, from his time at the RCS MMus opera course until now on his second year as a Scottish Opera Emerging Artist.  He was a charismatic Sid in ‘Albert Herring’.  In the G&S he played the minor role of Foreman of the Jury.  In ‘A Matter of Misconduct’, he gets to create the role of Roger Penistone, Deputy Prime Minister of the UK, launching his leadership campaign just as a series of potentially ruinous scandals is about to break.  His wife Cherry, played by Chloe Harris, is a women’s “wellness” guru, founder of the brand ‘GUSH!’  The action takes place in the Press Room of No.10, Downing Street.  Two other characters from that world could have been lifted straight out of ‘The Thick of It’.  Special Advisor  Sandy Hogg, a virtual clone of Malcolm Tucker (often thought to be a parody of Alastair Campbell) with an only slightly less expletive-laden vocabulary, is brilliantly portrayed by Jamie MacDougall.  In libretto-writing that is unrelentingly superb, he gets all the best one-liners, with the cleverest rhymes.  Ineffectual, incompetent and socially gauche Press Secretary Hugo Cheeseman is perhaps less obviously derived from the fictitious Jamie McDonald, played skilfully by Edward Jowle.  Sylvia Lawless, senior partner of the law firm Lawless, Lawless, Lawless and Crook (see what I mean about the writing?) is skilled in the plugging of leaks, the intimidation of whistle-blowers, the taking out of injunctions and good old-fashioned bribery for the suppression of the evidence of sleaze.  Her ‘services’ are available for a price, and they are direly needed as the scandals unfold.  This plum role was entrusted to Kira Kaplan and she repaid that trust manifold, portraying Sylvia with an air of weary nonchalant acceptance of the naive stupidity of her clients and their abject need for her expertise as “a brief with no scruples”.

One major scandal (a case of ‘cash for access’) towers over the others (which are oddly familiar references to motor homes, heavily redacted ‘released’ documents, sexual peccadillos and the like).  Some months back Cherry was at the Epsom races in the VIP box and was schmoozed by an Arab prince.  She confided that her business ‘GUSH!’ was in debt and he ‘generously’ offered to pay off her liabilities, securing an invitation to No.10 to tea, over which he would broach the UAE hosting the Olympics.  As a resident of the UAE for 11 years at the end of the 20th century, the last two of which my boss WAS of the royal family of Abu Dhabi, I am particularly tickled by this plot element.  As an illustration of clever rhymes and one liners, I never thought I’d hear Epsom Derby rhymed with Abu Dhabi; much less did I imagine ever hearing Jamie MacDougall, as Sandy Hogg, aghast at Cherry’s lack of scepticism at the sheikh’s apparent interest in her GUSH! products, sing the words: “Do you suppose his Royal Highness … really cares about vaginal dryness?”  Priceless.

As for Toby Hession’s music, fans of Jonathan Dove (among whom I number myself) will find much to admire in the melodies, rhythms and pace, with music that tells the story, not merely as much as the words, but in perfect collaboration with them, and as capably as the older master.  I was also captivated by the skilful orchestration, with echoes of William Walton and even Leoš Janáček.  When Cherry confesses the details of her intimate moment with the sheikh, the music is perfect cocktail-bar moody jazz, an illusion supported by clever lighting.  When it looks as if Sylvia has the matter under control, Roger and Cherry’s love duet, where they pledge to always forgive and support each other, is very moving, notwithstanding their evident culpability, and almost hinted at ‘Make Our Garden Grow’ from Bernstein’s ‘Candide’.  In a plot twist, when Roger discovers that through all the supposedly private revelations he has been wearing a live mic, he thinks all is lost.   Ross Cumming’s portrayal of his meltdown and train-crash press conference (the only chorus number in the piece was a chorus of probing journalists).was superb.  But another twist: the PM’s sudden illness and hospitalisation, puts him, as acting PM, back in pole poition for the leadership.

At the end, Sylvia Lawless dispassionately informs us of the statistics of how many revelations of political sleaze become public on average annually in the UK, and how pitifully few of them ever make it to court.  Mud sticks to most people, but those with money and power ...  Comedy can be sobering.

‘A Matter of Misconduct’ is an absolute gem.  One more Glasgow performance and two in Edinburgh.  Highly recommended. 

photo credit: Mihaela Bodlovic