Topsy-Turvy

Topsy-Turvy (Max) is a 1999 British musical period drama film about the 15-month period in 1884 and 1885 leading up to the premiere of Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado. The film focuses on the creative conflict between playwright and composer, and their decision to continue their partnership, which led to their creation of several more Savoy operas. This is definitely not my usual fare, but I enjoyed it.

trailer:

Reviews are positive. Deep Focus Review has a lengthy consideration, calling the movie "exceptional" and saying,

Indeed, the film is not solely about Gilbert and Sullivan. The thrust of the story is the making of The Mikado. Gilbert and Sullivan are the creative drive behind the production, which is central to the screen story. But around them is a group of theater professionals: actors, costumers, businessmen, and stagehands. If Leigh’s usual mode of filmmaking is the character study, then the central character of Topsy-Turvy is the production itself, and the way in which artists of various skill and craft come together in support of a much larger show. Leigh’s perspective is not the narrow view that there were two authorial voices responsible for The Mikado; rather, he keeps every aspect of the production in view. Leigh felt the film would be, he told Raphael, “an excellent device for exploring matters to do with those of us who are in the business of creating entertainment.” Within this framework, Leigh allows for seemingly unimportant asides about peripheral characters; but every detail he infuses into his film adds another dimension to the overall portrait, and the cumulative effect goes beyond individuals to amass something more luxuriant and scopic than a typical backstage drama.

Senses of Cinema describes the story:

The plot of the film is simplicity itself: Sir Arthur Sullivan (Allan Corduner) and William Schwenck “Willie” Gilbert (Jim Broadbent) have come to a creative impasse. After a string of light comedy musical hits, including The H.M.S. Pinafore and The Pirates of Penzance, Sullivan, who wants to compose “serious music,” has grown tired of Gilbert’s increasingly contrived scenarios, as evidenced by the failure of their latest collaboration, Princess Ida. As the fate of the D’Oyly Carte Opera Company rests in their hands, Richard D’Oyly Carte (Ron Cook) and the company’s manager, the level-headed Helen Lenoir (Wendy Nottingham), attempt to reason with Gilbert and Sullivan, but to no avail. It is only when Gilbert’s endlessly patient wife, Kitty (Lesley Manville), drags Gilbert to a touring exhibit of Japanese culture in Kensington that the librettist rouses himself from his creative torpor.

Surrounded by a world of eroticised costumes, samurai swords, Kabuki theatre and tea-drinking ceremonies, Gilbert is transfixed by the spectacle. Returning home with a large samurai sword as a souvenir of his outing, Gilbert furiously paces his study floor until he suddenly gets the inspiration for The Mikado, which would become arguably the team’s signature production.

The balance of Topsy-Turvy lovingly documents (or re-creates) the mechanics of producing the operetta on the stage of the Savoy Theatre, delving not only into the intricacies of rehearsals and costuming, but also the personal lives of the actors, costumers and others who bring The Mikado to life. This precise detail comes as a result of an enormous amount of detailed research, done, in fact, over a period of years. ...

Roger Ebert calls it "gloriously entertaining". Time Out concludes, "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."

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