Review: Delightful entertainment and impressive singing in HMS Pinafore

David McKechnie as Sir Joseph Porter and company in Union Theatre's HMS Pinafore. Picture by Francis Loney.

HMS Pinafore by Union Theatre, Warwick Arts Centre, Coventry. On until April 26. Box office: 024 7652 4524.

Live piano-playing, aesthetically-pleasing dance choreography, extremely impressive singing and slapstick comedy make for a delightful evening of entertainment at by the award-winning Union Theatre as they bring Gilbert and Sullivan’s HMS Pinafore to the audience.

All the infectiously tuneful songs we know - without even realising it - are here, and it is amazing to witness the adult men who (in this musical-within-a-musical) are playing women, singing with such female-like operatic voices.

And there is much harmless comedy to be enjoyed - made all the more entertaining by the characters’ body movements, synchronisation and repetition. Before this evening’s performance, I had been unfamiliar with this Gilbert and Sullivan classic, but I recognised so many of the songs and took much pleasure out of the no-strings-attached spectacle. Recommended.

Sundari Cleal