Stage review All aboard for this daffy crowd-pleaser

When HMS Pinafore premiered in 1878, audiences would have appreciated a particularly topical lampoon skewering the First Lord of the Admiralty, WH Smith, a man who, much like Gilbert’s Sir Joseph Porter, ascended the greasy pole of politics without a shred of nautical experience.

- Clive Paget

Smith’s name lives on in the newsagent chain, while English National Opera’s laugh-out-loud staging looks elsewhere for its targets in an energetic show that takes the idea of the running gag to a whole new level.