Platt’s working of the story as a whimsical farce set in 1920s England – we’re in the topiary garden of a country house – gives credence to the musical distillation, a kind of salon orchestra as the soundtrack to quaint, PG Wodehouse-style humour, flappers and idiot eccentrics…this production really sizzles…the humour is infectious, not least when the cast fan out and infiltrate the audience.
Ken Walton The Scotsman
Exuding a real sense of fun, the little quirks really work here, with a joke about the substance of the elixir in question likely to go down particularly well with Scottish audiences. Director Oliver Platt’s production is one which strikes a rare balance of being genuinely funny yet beautifully sincere.
Miranda Heggie The Herald Scotland
Scottish Opera’s out-of-a-furniture-van productions have so much to offer, and this performance was full of delightful surprises… The staging was busy and inventive with no-one staying still for very long, the cast of ten making complicated moves in a very tight space look easy as pie… this PG Woodhouse-tinged evening was a whole lot of fun.
David Smythe Bachtrack
Full marks to the doughty troupe who managed to whip up enough energy and whit to make this slimline Donezetti look and sound exuberant…Platt’s green and pleasant hedge-strewn production takes us to an English country estate garden, inhabited by characters straight out of a P G Wodehouse yarn.
Ken Walton Opera Now
Scottish Express
Glasgowtheatreblog