Scottish Opera's Albert Herring, Haddington review: 'a charming farce'

Glen Cunningham in the title role in Scottish Opera's production of Albert Herring | Sally Jubb

Lammermuir Festival: Scottish Opera’s Albert Herring, The Corn Exchange, Haddington ★★★★

Benjamin Britten’s sardonic 1947 comic opera Albert Herring revels in idiotic trivialities and petulant pomposity as if preempting the best of classic TV sitcoms, as an assortment of Parish Council-like caricatures create havoc when electing a May King after the search for suitably untarnished girls to be May Queen has proved fruitless. Needless to say, it all goes terribly wrong.

So, if there are distinct echoes of The Vicar of Dibley or To The Manor Born in Daisy Evans’ new production for Scottish Opera, unveiled in Haddington at the start of this year’s Lammermuir Festival, that’s perfectly in tune with the parochial frivolity of this charming farce. Things are kept relatively simple – a tightly functional community hall-style stage, its ordinariness festooned with festive glitter and gauchely colourful props in Kat Heath’s design scheme – and two-and-a half hours whizz by in a whimsical flash.

The cast is a dream team, conjuring up an explosive cocktail of sparring individualism and corporate muscle. Besides Francis Church’s haughty Vicar, Edward Jowle’s plodding PC Budd, Jamie MacDougall’s blustering Mayor, Ross Cumming’s delinquent Sid, Jane Monari’s officious Florence, Kira Kaplan’s impassioned Miss Wordsworth, Chloe Harris’ obliging Nancy and Christine Sjolander as Albert’s molly-coddling mother, Susan Bullock presents a wonderfully imperious Lady Billows in the Hyacinth Bucket mould. There’s also a wonderfully psychedelic Ken Russell moment when the whole production switches gear to slow motion.

But it’s Glen Cunningham’s Albert that shines brightest, his transformation from cosseted naïf to rum-fuelled man-of-the-world conveyed with charismatic ecstasy, his piercing diction unstintingly clear enough not to require squinting at the surtitles. 

All of this is briskly supported by William Coles’ alert music direction, and a chamber-sized Scottish Opera Orchestra alive to a score buzzing with textural virtuosity and humorous innuendo.