There are movies you love because they reflect your soul. There are movies you love because they reflect your chaos. And then there are movies like Topsy-Turvy, which somehow do both while wearing a cravat and arguing about the placement of a fan in Act Two. Mike Leigh’s 1999 backstage operetta is not just a film, it’s a sumptuous, full-bodied obsession. It’s the kind of movie you watch once, then again, and then maybe one more time with director’s commentary, just to make sure you didn’t hallucinate the whole thing.
I am, admittedly, a glutton for the “making-of” genre. The films that peel back the velvet curtain to show the tantrums, tea breaks, and terrible dress rehearsals that precede artistic triumph. You know the type: everyone’s yelling, no one knows their lines, and someone always cries in the wardrobe department. Son of Rambow did this with camcorders and childlike wonder. Birdman did it with jazz drumming and existential dread. Topsy-Turvy does it with stiff upper lips and corsets so tight they could alter your worldview on Hamilton.
Set during the 15-month artistic dry spell that preceded Gilbert and Sullivan’s creation of The Mikado, the film is less a biopic and more a lovingly embroidered tapestry of artistic neurosis. Leigh, in his signature style, avoids biographical bullet points and instead invites us to loiter in the shadows of rehearsal rooms, eavesdrop on choristers’ gossip, and delight in the mundane miracle of a costume fitting. We are immersed, whether we like it or not, in the glorious tedium of creation.
And what a creation it is. Topsy-Turvy boasts an ensemble so divine it feels like the cinematic equivalent of a perfectly tuned chorus. Jim Broadbent’s W.S. Gilbert is a walking constellation of social awkwardness and brittle pride, while Allan Corduner’s Arthur Sullivan is all artistic melancholy and waistcoat flair. The supporting cast, those gloriously eccentric actors trying anything short of murder to secure a part, deserve a collective Olivier Award just for the way they say “top notes.”
There’s one scene, though, that deserves to be put in the Louvre, or at the very least looped forever in the background of a highbrow cocktail party: the telephone scene. It’s 1885, the telephone is new, and watching Gilbert and Sullivan fumble through a call to each other is like witnessing a Victorian tech support line. The sheer, deadpan ridiculousness of two grown men yelling “HELLO!” into the void with the solemnity of bishops is, without exaggeration, one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen on film. It’s Monty Python by way of Masterpiece Theatre. And it’s also a masterclass in comedic restraint, in the art of letting the awkwardness stretch just long enough to be transcendent. If Beckett had written a sketch for The Two Ronnies, it might look like this.
What elevates Topsy-Turvy beyond mere period-piece perfectionism is its deep, abiding love for the mess of artistry. There’s no triumphant swell of music, no slow-motion curtain call. Instead, we get glimpses of self-doubt, hangovers, costumes that itch, and the quiet euphoria of making something beautiful with a group of weirdos who care just as much as you do. It’s a film about theatre, yes, but really, it’s a film about the madness and magic of making anything at all.
So if you’ve somehow missed Topsy-Turvy, correct this cultural oversight immediately. Watch it. Rewatch it. Quote it at inappropriate times. And please, bring back that old-timey telephone diction. I’m desperate for someone to call me and say, “Are we popular or are we mad?” It’s art. It’s comedy. It’s wigs. What more could you want? And the next time you find yourself yelling “HELLO?” into the void, whether it be via Zoom, telephone, or into the abyss of your own creative anxiety, remember Gilbert and Sullivan. Remember The Mikado. Remember the telephone. And take heart: you, too, are part of the show.
