Cinema: Topsy-Turvy

STARRING: Jim Broadbent, Allan Corduner DIRECTOR: Mike Leigh OPENS: Dec. 24

It's 1884, and Gilbert and Sullivan need a hit. Princess Ida is just not doing the sort of business they're used to. But Sullivan (Corduner) wants to write something more serious than comic operettas. And Gilbert (Broadbent) keeps trying to recycle stale story lines that his collaborator (and the critics) dismiss.

Their solution to this problem--based on Gilbert's chance encounter with Japanese culture at a London exhibition--turns out to be The Mikado. And Mike Leigh's movie about mounting that best of all G. & S. works turns out to be...

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