Pirates of Penzance

In February this year, my family and I attended the presentation of this play in Lagos, Nigeria.Now in Perth, the play is presented at the Subiaco Regal Theater by the Arts Projects Australia by a cast direct from London.

My family and I were able to attend the last presentation on 27th October and this affords us an opportunity to compare the Lagos and Perth presentation. The story is the same and this has been documented in my previous post. The differences relate to the ambience of the theatre in which both were presented, the costumes as well as the audience appreciation of the work done by the cast. While the Muson Theatre is a newer building, the stage and lighting does not compare favourably with those of the Regal Theatre, despite the Regal Theatre being a much older structure. The organisation and sitting arrangement in the Regal Theatre and YES…the working Air Conditioning system, makes this latter experience more enjoyable. As to the costumes, despite my initial critic, I seem to appreciate the costumes of the cast in the Lagos presentation much more than those of the cast in Perth – the latter’s costumes do not bear much resemblance to those of pirates.

There must be a shortage of ladies in London otherwise I see no reason why the cast for the Perth show has no ladies among them – the roles of the general’s daughters were played by men dressed in ladies dresses but with a very good imitation of the carriage and sounds of our feminine ones.

The Perth Audience was a much lively one as the closing of each scene in the presentation was met with thunderous claps showing how well the audience appreciate the performance. Overall it was a nice presentation that spanned two (2) hours but I believe that the Lagos presentation was a better value for money. By the way, we paid $71.90 (N12,100) per person to watch the Perth’s show compared to the N2,000 per ticket in Lagos. Not much wander why the Theatre in Subiaco is well maintained and the air conditioning will continue to work.