The Pirates of Penzance

Watching this I felt dark dread come over me every time Angela Lansbury came on screen, and I wasn't quite sure why that is. Now it's couple of days later, and it suddenly hit me. Around five years ago I saw this video unearthed by Everything is Terrible with Lansbury having a bath (trust me, if you haven't seen it yet, don't). Now at the time I did my best to erase it from my memory, and I didn't remember the fact consciously even watching a movie with her, but subconscious remembers.

We get fantastical sets evocative of the dream-scene sets in old MGM musicals. We get equivalents of the Keystone Kops, the Sennett Bathing Beauties, and Mabel Normand (the eyelash-batting Ronstadt). We get Busby Berkeleyan choreographic floral patterns shot from above. We get Elvis Presleyan gestures and gyrations thrown into Smith's big solo. We get Kline, as the Pirate King, done up as if for an Errol Flynn look-alike contest

Lively, goofy, and "often" hilarious with tongue-twisting lyrics and exuberant performances by especially Kline and Azito.

To say they sing marvellously would be redundant, but I’m going to engage in flattery regardless; because the magnificence of their performance is everything I could desire, and only equality delightful words can be used to praise them ;)

I saw the live theater version, but I am being lazy here.

A hilarious musical that requires a bit of thought to follow.

Much better on stage.

Not bad, but not as fun as it thinks it is