The Pirates of Penzance (DVD, 2002)

I love the musical and all the cast... not as good a production as the movie version.. The orchestra and sound production was not nearly as good as the movie.
I had no idea Kevin Kline had the kind of talent and Rex Smith and Linda Ronstadt were wonderful.. Suggest your purchase movie version..

I have always been something of an "anglophile", especially when it comes to English comedy. When I discovered that Gilbert and Sullivan's "The Pirates of Penzance" was done by some of my favorite actors and singers some time ago I had to see it! It challenged my prejudices. e.g. I had thought of Kevin Kline as strictly an actor and Linda Ronstadt as "just" a country singer. Both have spent considerable time training their voices, if you haven't heard them before in such demanding roles you will be as amazed as I was.

I already knew that Angela Lansbury was an actress and a singer, but she did an especially outstanding job in this hilarious film as did ALL of the other actors/singers. The techniques and timing are surprising and funny, they even included a play-within-a-play, although I am not sure if this is normally done in performances of P of P or just this one.

Before buying the DVD copy I used to have it in VHS form, but I made the mistake of "loaning" it out five months ago and haven't seen it since. I had to have a copy on hand and the DVD will allow me to go to specific scenes and will last longer so it was well worth my while to get. You may want to consider getting a copy as well.

Weak leads, bad staging, inclusion of songs not even in this operetta--totally lackluster. I'm a big Gilbert & Sullivan fan, so I ordered this thinking it might be fun. It was okay, but that was about it. Maybe seeing it in Central Park would have made it more fun.

We really enjoyed the DVD. Although since it was taped from a live production some of the color was not vivid, but it was such a great production, we tried to overlook that problem.

I bought the DVD because I was doing the show at a local theatre and needed to see what the show was like. I couldn't find it anywhere locally, so I bought a copy and have passed it around to the rest of the cast. It really is a good show and the DVD arrived in perfect condition. If you want to see this movie, this is the ersion to see. The older BBC version really isn't very good at all.