The film received very favourable reviews, film festival awards and two Academy Awards for design. While it is considered an artistic success as an in-depth illustration of British life in the theatre during the Victorian era, the film did not recover its production costs. Leigh cast actors who did their own singing in the film, and the singing performances were faulted by some critics, while others lauded Leigh's strategy.
Plot
On the opening night of Princess Ida at the Savoy Theatre in January 1884, composer Sir Arthur Sullivan, ill from kidney disease, is barely able to make it to the theatre to conduct. He goes on a holiday to the continent hoping that the rest will improve his health. While he is away, ticket sales and audiences at the Savoy Theatre wilt in the hot summer weather. Producer Richard D'Oyly Carte has called on Sullivan and the dramatist W. S. Gilbert to create a new piece for the Savoy, but it is not ready when Ida closes. Until a new piece can be prepared, Carte revives an earlier Gilbert and Sullivan work, The Sorcerer.
Gilbert's idea for their next opera features a transformative magic lozenge, which Sullivan feels is too similar to the magic potion and other magic talismans used in previous operas[a] and mechanical in its reliance on a supernatural device. Sullivan, under pressure from the British musical establishment to write more serious music, says he longs for something that is "probable", involves "human interest", and is not dependent on magic. Gilbert sees nothing wrong with his libretto and refuses to write a new one, resulting in a standoff. The impasse is resolved after Gilbert and his wife visit a popular exhibition of Japanese arts and crafts in Knightsbridge, London.[b] When the katana sword he purchases there noisily falls off the wall of his study, he is inspired to write a libretto set in exotic Japan. Sullivan likes the idea and agrees to compose the music for it.
Gilbert, Sullivan and Carte work to make The Mikado a success, and many glimpses of rehearsals and stressful backstage preparations for the show follow: cast members lunch together before attempting to negotiate their salaries. Gilbert brings in Japanese girls from the exhibition to teach the ladies' chorus how to walk and use fans in the Japanese manner. The principal cast react to the fittings of their costumes designed by C. Wilhelm. The cast objects to Gilbert's proposed cut of the title character's Act Two solo, "A more humane Mikado," persuading the playwright to restore it. The actors face first-night jitters in their dressing rooms. Finally The Mikado is ready to open. As usual, Gilbert is too nervous to watch the opening performance and paces the streets. Returning to the theatre, he finds that the new opera is a resounding success.
Film professor Wheeler Winston Dixon wrote that the film "uses the conventions of the biographical narrative film to expose the ruthlessness and insularity of the Victorian era, at the same time as it chronicles, with great fidelity, the difficulties of a working relationship in the creative arts. ... Topsy-Turvy is an investigation into the social, political, sexual and theatrical economies of the Victorian era".[4]
While the film deals primarily with the production of The Mikado, it depicts many aspects of 1880s British life and society, some based on historical episodes. Scenes show George Grossmith's use of morphine; Leonora Braham's alcoholism and single motherhood; Jessie Bond's health issues, including an abscess on her leg that does not heal; Sullivan's visit to a French brothel and his relationship with his longtime mistress, Fanny Ronalds, implying that she obtains an abortion; three actors' discussion of the destruction of the British garrison at Khartoum by the Mahdi; a private salon concert; a conversation about the use of nicotine by women; and Gilbert being accosted outside the theatre on opening night by an elderly prostitute. The film also depicts the Savoy Theatre as having electric lighting; it was the first public building in Britain, and one of the first of any kind, to be lit entirely by electricity.[5] Another scene shows an early use of the telephone. During costume fittings, the actors protest at having to perform without their corsets for the sake of accuracy.[6]
Production
Principal photography took place at 3 Mills Studios in London beginning 29 June 1998 and completed shooting on 24 October.[7] Location shooting took place in London and Hertfordshire, and scenes which took place at the Savoy Theatre were filmed at the Richmond Theatre in Richmond, London. The film's budget was $20,000,000.[8]
Release
Box office
In the United Kingdom, the film grossed £610,634 in total and £139,700 on its opening weekend.[citation needed] In the United States, the film grossed $6,208,548 in total, and $31,387 on its opening weekend.[9]
Critical reception
The film received very positive reviews from critics. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a 90% "Fresh" score based on 88 reviews, with an average rating of 7.8/10. The site's consensus states: "Dressed to the nines in exquisite production value and buoyed by Mike Leigh's sardonic wit, Topsy-Turvy is rich entertainment that is as brainy as it is handsome."[10]Metacritic reports a 90 out of 100 rating based on 31 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".[11]
Janet Maslin of The New York Times found Topsy-Turvy "grandly entertaining", "one of those films that create a mix of erudition, pageantry and delectable acting opportunities, much as Shakespeare in Love did".[12] She continued:
Topsy-Turvy ... is much bigger than their story. Its aspirations are thrilling in their own right. Mr. Leigh's gratifyingly long view of life in the theatre (Gilbert has a dentist who tells him Princess Ida could have been shorter) includes not only historical and biographical details but also the painstaking process of creating a Gilbert and Sullivan production from the ground up. The film details all this with the luxury of a leisurely pace, as opposed to a slow one.[12]
Richard Schickel in Time magazine described the film as "one of the year's more beguiling surprises" and a "somewhat comic, somewhat desperate, very carefully detailed" story given "heartfelt heft" in the way it depicts how rehearsing and putting on a comic opera "takes over everyone's life".[13] According to Philip French in The Observer, "Topsy-Turvy is not a conventional biographical film. ... [It] is an opulently mounted, warm-hearted celebration of two great artists and of a dedicated group of actors, backstage personnel and front-of-house figures working together." French also calls the film "a rare treat, thanks to Dick Pope's photography, Eve Stewart's production design and Lindy Hemming's costumes", with "great music orchestrated by Carl Davis."[14] For Roger Ebert, it was "one of the year's best films."[15]
Topsy-Turvy ranks 481st on Empire's 2008 list of the 500 greatest films of all time.[16]
A digitally restored version of the film, released on DVD and Blu-ray by The Criterion Collection in March 2011, includes an audio commentary featuring director Leigh; a new video conversation between Leigh and musical director Gary Yershon; Leigh's 1992 short filmA Sense of History, written by and starring actor Jim Broadbent; deleted scenes; and a featurette from 1999 including interviews with Leigh and cast members.[18][19]
^Gilbert and Sullivan's The Sorcerer (1877) involved a magic love potion, and several of Gilbert's other works involved various magic devices that transform the possessor. See, e.g., Dulcamara, or the Little Duck and the Great Quack (1866). Gilbert later used a version of this 1884 plot suggestion in The Mountebanks.
^This scene in the film is anachronistic: Gilbert is shown in the film visiting the exhibition and getting inspiration for his play, but the real exhibition did not open until January 1885, long after Gilbert sent Sullivan the first plot sketch of The Mikado in May 1884.
^"The Savoy Theatre", The Times, 3 October 1881; and Burgess, Michael. "Richard D'Oyly Carte", The Savoyard, January 1975, pp. 7–11
^An anachronism occurs in the film when Gilbert suggests to Sullivan that he "get in touch with Mr Ibsen in Oslo". At the time the capital of Norway was called Christiana; it was not renamed Oslo until 1925.
