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Rating: 
Summary: RUDDIGORE go home!
Review: "Ruddigore" has a special place in the hearts of many diehard Savoyards. It is one of my personal favorites and Act One is certainly one of the finest things in the entire Savoy Series.
Alas, one could hardly imagine a worse production than the one here. In a bizarre way it actually becomes a textbook on how NOT to produce G&S. Abridged, miscast and ill-conceived it's a complete mess from start to finish.
Rating:
Summary: RUDDIGORE go home!
Review: "Ruddigore" has a special place in the hearts of many diehard Savoyards. It is one of my personal favorites and Act One is certainly one of the finest things in the entire Savoy Series.
Alas, one could hardly imagine a worse production than the one here. In a bizarre way it actually becomes a textbook on how NOT to produce G&S. Abridged, miscast and ill-conceived it's a complete mess from start to finish.
Rating:
Summary: Really awful production
Review: I had looked forward to the TV production of Ruddigore and was appalled at what was done. The result was less professional than one my high school did years ago on a far less grand budget. Vital songs have been cut, and far too much effort is put into artificial, cutesy, and gimmicky stagings. It is particularly disappointing seeing how well other G&S plays in this series were done. Any fan of traditional G&S, and particularly this less well known gem, will be greatly disappointed, as I certainly was. Ruddigore deserves a much better DVD offering than this retread of a failed TV production.
Rating: 
Summary: Mediocre - Pedestrian
Review: It's true the RUDDIGORE is a problematical vehicle, but this production proves that, if properly handled, it ranks with the best of Gilbert and Swllivan's output. All of the major roles are particularly well cast and played, and the beginning of act two -- with the awakening portraits of gruesome ancestors -- is a marvel. My two daughters term this sequence the best Gilbert and Sullivan they've seen on videotape, and they've seen quite alot. This is the best of the four BBC productions I've seen on tape, and is wonderful fun. Don't miss it!
Rating: 
Summary: A Wonderful Production
Review: It's true the RUDDIGORE is a problematical vehicle, but this production proves that, if properly handled, it ranks with the best of Gilbert and Swllivan's output. All of the major roles are particularly well cast and played, and the beginning of act two -- with the awakening portraits of gruesome ancestors -- is a marvel. My two daughters term this sequence the best Gilbert and Sullivan they've seen on videotape, and they've seen quite alot. This is the best of the four BBC productions I've seen on tape, and is wonderful fun. Don't miss it!
Rating:
Summary: Mediocre - Pedestrian
Review: Neither Vincent Price nor Keith Michel can sing! That fact alone goes a long way towards destroying this rather bad presentation of the absolutely superb operetta that Gilbert and Sullivan wrote. What a contrast to the splendid job that the Canadian Stratford Company did with Gilbert and Sullivan.
Rating:
Summary: Awful!!!
Review: This is an awful G and S production. The whole British series is a disaster but this is about the worst. Even Price can't save it. And why did they leave out some of the best music? The best G and S on DVD remains the Australian Opera's PATIENCE and the Canadian Stratford's MIKADO.
Rating:
Summary: Vincent Price born to the role!
Review: This is by far the best of the 1982 Brent Walker Gilbert & Sullivan series produced for world-wide television distribution. You may recall the late Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. narrating the series for American PBS. A spoof on British Gothic mellodrama, Gilbert wrote a typically clever book with some colorful characters, and Sullivan's music is very evocative of everything from sea songs, hornpipe dances, English madrigals, pastoral love songs, rousing choruses, sweet ballads and good old mustache-twirling mellerdrammer-type music. Although not considered a success by the author/composer in its day, Ruddigore still had a long, respectable run. The problem was it followed their great light opera The Mikado, a tough act to follow. Vincent Price is virtually type-cast here in the spooky role of Sir Despard Murgatroyd, and he plays it to the hilt. His singing is rudimentary, but, who cares? He's great in the part, and worth the price of the video alone. Keith Michel (PBS's Henry VIII in the early 1970's) is fine as Robin Oakapple, Sandra Dugdale a lovely Rose Maybud and we get to see the great Donald Adams of D'Oyly Carte fame do his stuff as Roderick Murgatroyd. There are some cuts, as this series was wont to do. The costumes are fantastic, the sets and special effects just right. This is also the only Ruddigore available, at this writing. Don't miss this one if you like period operetta or musical comedy. A winner!
Rating:
Summary: Vincent Price born to the role!
Review: This is by far the best of the 1982 Brent Walker Gilbert & Sullivan series produced for world-wide television distribution. You may recall the late Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. narrating the series for American PBS. A spoof on British Gothic mellodrama, Gilbert wrote a typically clever book with some colorful characters, and Sullivan's music is very evocative of everything from sea songs, hornpipe dances, English madrigals, pastoral love songs, rousing choruses, sweet ballads and good old mustache-twirling mellerdrammer-type music. Although not considered a success by the author/composer in its day, Ruddigore still had a long, respectable run. The problem was it followed their great light opera The Mikado, a tough act to follow. Vincent Price is virtually type-cast here in the spooky role of Sir Despard Murgatroyd, and he plays it to the hilt. His singing is rudimentary, but, who cares? He's great in the part, and worth the price of the video alone. Keith Michel (PBS's Henry VIII in the early 1970's) is fine as Robin Oakapple, Sandra Dugdale a lovely Rose Maybud and we get to see the great Donald Adams of D'Oyly Carte fame do his stuff as Roderick Murgatroyd. There are some cuts, as this series was wont to do. The costumes are fantastic, the sets and special effects just right. This is also the only Ruddigore available, at this writing. Don't miss this one if you like period operetta or musical comedy. A winner!
Rating: 
Summary: Cheap Production Values Mar The Performance
Review: While this video is worrth seeing, and perhaps owning, so that you have a copy of Ruddigore (which is hard to find) in your Gilbert and Sullivan library; I couldn't help but feel that the production of this opera suffered from the low-budget video tricks used to make it feel like other than a stage production. This was clearly a made-for-TV special that only a true G&S fan could love. There is also way too much shameless mugging and general hammery in the production; Vincent Price is the exception to this, as his acting performance is fine, although his singing voice would never get him into D'Oyly Carte. Other than this, the singing performances are fine. The staging interferes with the performance; picture a college stage production set interspersed with video bits reminiscent of the worst British pop videos of the late 1970s, and you get the idea.
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