Product Details

• Actors: Alfred Marks, Joel Grey, Elizabeth Gale, Claire Powell, David Hillman
• Directors: Dave Heather
• Writers: William S. Gilbert
• Producers: George Walker, Judith de Paul
• Format: Classical, Color, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC
• Language: English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo)
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: Acorn Media
• DVD Release Date: October 22, 2002
• Run Time: 115 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00006JU6I
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #121,089 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Gilbert & Sullivan - The Yeomen of the Guard / Marks, Grey, Opera World" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

YEOMEN OF THE GUARD - DVD Movie

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A fine production marred by cuts, September 29, 2000

By 

Michael K. Halloran - See all my reviews

This review is from: Gilbert & Sullivan - The Yeomen of the Guard / Marks, Grey, Opera World [VHS] (VHS Tape)

The Brent-Walker series is currently the only complete (except for "Utopia, Limited" and "The Grand Duke") video set of Gilbert and Sullivan operas available. And, as far as I can tell, this is the only version of "Yeomen of the Guard" available on video in the U. S.

This is the "serious" Gilbert and Sullivan, the closest thing to a grand opera the pair would ever do. If, like me, you have viewed the entire Brent-Walker series, you'll know that this production relies less on cutesy camera tricks and more on characterization and a real sense of the opera's purpose. The costumes and sets are really lovely, and the acting is very good, considering that many of the cast are singers before they are actors. Particular mention must be made of Alfred Marks as a likable Wilfred and Elizabeth Gale as a sympathetic Elsie (which is no mean feat; I consider Elsie the least sympathetic herione in the G & S canon).

Pride of place, however, must go to Joel Grey's Jack Point, a stunning portrayal. I know there are those who disagree with me (I read one review that called him "dull as dishwater") but I find Grey a wonderful Point. He shouldn't be, of course -- he plays the part with an American accent and is a high tenor rather than the baritone the role calls for. However, the accent helps to mark Point as an outsider, and Grey has no problem with the lower end of his range. He really plays the role with a sense of the bitterness underneath the jester's facade, without alienating the affection of the audience. Jack Point is the pivotal part in this piece; depending on how the actor chooses to portray him, "Yeomen" can end up being a light operetta or a dark opera. Here, it is most decidedly the latter. Grey is especially moving in the final scene as well -- if he doesn't break your heart, you really must be a cynic.

My review has been positive thus far, so why only three stars? Alas, the video is marred by the excision of no fewer than six entire numbers, as well as the opening verse of Phoebe's spinning song. Some of the most famous songs are gone -- both of Fairfax's arias as well as the quartets "When a Wooer goes a-wooing" and "Strange adventure." The decision for the elimination of these numbers is inexplicable. Apparently some of them were filmed and shown on the BBC broadcast, but no video version contains them. There is missing dialogue as well, most notably the scene between Elsie and the disguised Fairfax and the scene when Dame Carruthers discovers Sergeant Meryll's secret. Presumably these cuts were made so that the piece would fit into the two-hour time slot alotted to the other videos, but if so, that is a poor reason.

So enjoy this video for what is there: costumes, sets, performances (especially Grey), but make sure you have a good recording handy so you don't have to do without the missing music.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent in parts, but far from being a definitive version, January 30, 2003

By 

Mark Snegg (Boone, NC USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Gilbert & Sullivan - The Yeomen of the Guard / Marks, Grey, Opera World (DVD)

In general this is an excellent production, with high quality music and singing in the best D'Oyly Carte tradition. Elizabeth Gale as Elsie Maynard and Elizabeth Bainbridge as Dame Carruthers are both superb. They capture the parts to perfection, both in singing and acting. Geoffrey Chard as Sergeant Meryll, Peter Savidge as the Lieutenant, and Alfred Marks as Wilfred Shadbolt are also excellent. But I've given this version only 4 stars because there are some definite problems with it. Joel Grey is good, but somehow his rendition of Jack Point just doesn't quite work. The part of Phoebe is a good example of how *not* to do it - fake accent, very poor acting, and excessively operatic singing. The introduction by Douglas Fairbanks reaches an apex of inanity, but it's easy to skip it. More importantly, several songs and some parts of the dialog are cut. I don't know how anyone with a heart, or with any feeling for G&S, could have cut 'Is life a boon?' from the Yeomen of the Guard. The words are even engraved on Gilbert's tombstone. Still, on the whole, I'd say it's definitely worth watching.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Oh, the doing and undoing ... / When a jester goes a-wooing / And he wishes he was dead!, September 22, 2006

By 

L. E. Cantrell (Vancouver, British Columbia Canada) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Gilbert & Sullivan - The Yeomen of the Guard / Marks, Grey, Opera World (DVD)

I am in general agreement with five of the preceding six Amazon reviewers. This is ultimately a disappointing version of Gilbert and Sullivan's "Yeomen of the Guard." It is all the more disappointing because its weaknesses arise from business decisions rather than artistic ones. These Brent Walker productions were rigidly locked into two-hour blocks of television broadcast time. Some, like "The Pirates of Penzance" and "HMS Pinafore" had to be stretched unconscionably. This one had to be cut with a very dull and bloody ax.

Save for one, the performers are very good. Alfred Marks, as Wilfred Shadbolt, the Tower of London's Head Jailer and Assistant Tormentor, has a particularly commanding presence. (My English wife, however, regards the accent he affects as rather improbable.)

The weak link among the performers is the most famous of the bunch, Joel Grey. Perhaps owing to the ridiculously short rehearsal schedule, Grey is dull where he should be sharp, annoying where he should be engaging and a flat-out failure in portraying the one tragic character in all of Gilbert and Sullivan. Too bad.

The London Symphony Orchestra and the Ambrosian Chorus both sound fine. The conducting by Andrew Faris is quite satisfactory.

Some regard "Yeomen" as the most operatic of the G&S works. It is certainly unique in being first and foremost a romance--and a fairly dark-hued one at that--rather than a comedy. My wife, who appeared in two separate productions of "Yeomen" reserves that title of "most operatic" to G&S's "Princess Ida" and on a fair day when the wind is north by northwest, I agree with her.

TEXT: Large sections of spoken dialogue are omitted but the cuts in the musical texts are a far greater loss. The following songs and ensembles are missing from this performance:

Act I--
"When maiden loves, she sits and sighs," first verse of solo for Phoebe Meryll
"Alas, I waver to and fro!" trio, Phoebe Meryll, Leonard Meryll, Sergeant Meryll
"Is life a boon?" solo, Colonel Fairfax

Act II--
"Free from his fetters grim--" solo, Colonel Fairfax
"Strange adventure, Maiden wedded," quartet, Colonel Fairfax, Sergeant Meryll, Dame Carruthers and Kate
"When a wooer / Goes a-wooing," quartet, Elsie Maynard, Jack Point, Colonel Fairfax, Phoebe Meryll
"Rapture, rapture," duet, Dame Carruthers, Sergeant Meryll

It may be noted that both solos and much else has been jettisoned from the part of the ostensible romantic tenor lead, Colonel Fairfax. All the music for both Kate and Leonard Meryll is gone. (This latter I find particularly galling, since Leonard Meryll was my role with San Francisco's Lamplighters--forty years ago.)

By my rough calculation, about nineteen minutes of music, including some of the best stuff in the show, are lost forever.

LIBRETTO: The booklet that accompanies this set neglects to point out that its text is much less than complete--an understandable enough omission, I suppose. W.S. Gilbert's stage directions have been abandoned wherever they have been ignored by the televison director and in some cases new directions have been inserted--again, understandable.

Not understandable at all, however, is why some ham-handed compositor has played fast and loose with Gilbert's verse structures. Where WSG in his carefully overseen printed editions has "Here's a man of jollity, / Jibe, joke, jollify! / Give us of your quality, / Come, fool, follify!", this libretto has "Here's a man of jollity, jibe, joke, jollify! / Give us of your quality, come, fool, follify!" This sort of slovenliness appears all through the printed text.

PRODUCTION: Overall, the production is quite handsome, even sumptuous. Tower Green is a fairly accurate reproduction of the Tower of London's Green as currently preserved. The interior of Sergeant Meryll's house is clearly based on the house of the Dutch painter Vermeer. The quarters of the Yeomen seems to spring out of any of several 17th Century Dutch genre paintings. With one exception, the costumes are good, although they are not those of Gilbert's specifically intended reign of Henry VIII (say 1540), but rather those of the time of Charles I (say 1630).

The exception is the costume of Jack Point. The man is a professional jester, for heaven's sake; he should not be the drabbest person on stage! W.S. Gilbert was a famous illustrator of his own published works. He clearly showed Jack Point dressed as though ready to pose for a portrait of the Joker in a new deck of cards.

The decision to bring the play forward by three generations is a bit puzzling. A down-at-the-heels jester on the road in the mid-16th Century is plausible. Shakespeare's one-time lead comedian and partner, Will Kempe, toured the length of England in the 1590s, performing comic dances. By the 1630s, though, the success of the established professional theater companies and the outright hostility of the Puritans would long-since have closed out the careers of any would-be wandering players.

Three stars for this "Yeomen of the Guard's" not-inconsiderable merits, but is should have been so MUCH better!