Review: A COMEDY OF TENORS at ARTS Theatre

Reviewed by Barry Lenny, Thursday 29th October 2026.

Therry’s A Comedy of Tenors, set in 1930s Paris at the Faubourg Ritz Hotel in an Art Deco suite, is a sequel to Ken Ludwig’s Lend Me A Tenor featuring some of the same characters. Tenor, Tito Merelli, known as Il Stupendo, and his wife Maria are there for him to give a major concert, if producer, Henry Saunders can keep everything on track, with the reluctant help of his once-assistant, now son-in-law and tenor, Max. This farce is directed by Kerrin White who maintains a fast pace and keeps the laughs coming.

Steve Kidd plays Henry Saunders, the harassed producer, general manager of the Cleveland Grand Opera Company. Saunders appears to be channelling John Cleese’s Basil Fawlty in an energetic performance. Every time Henry thinks that he has overcome a problem, a bigger problem crops up, and Kidd has his character unravelling step by step, descending in advanced panic, much to the enjoyment of the audience.

Adam Schultz plays Max, Henry’s ex-assistant, and now son-in-law, having married Maggie, who doesn’t appear in this sequel as she is still at home in the USA, about to have their first baby. In the earlier play, Max had stepped in for the incapacitated Tito, and that play ended with him kissing Maggie. He is now a tenor in his own right, and one of the three tenors singing in the concert. Schultz portrays a character who is surrounded by chaos but remains professional as he sorts out one problem after another, while finding lots more humour in the role as the perfect foil to Henry’s panicking.

Ben Todd plays Tito Merelli, the main tenor in the play, and he also plays Beppo, a bellhop (which is actually called a chasseur, porteur, or groom in France) who also happens to be a tenor, as well as being the spitting image of Tito, but with a moustache, which he shaves. Beppo had been a successful singing gondolier who left Venice for Paris, hoping to become an opera singer, but had not made it. Beppo is engaged to impersonate Tito when he storms off, believing Maria has been unfaithful with Carlo Nucci. Todd has the most powerful voice of the tenors, and passes well as a classically trained singer, as well as providing many laughs as he rapidly switches to and fro between his two characters, adding to the confusion.

Maria Merelli, his jealous wife, is played by Hayley McGill. On the one hand, Maria is confused by Tito’s accusations that she is having an affair and, on the other hand, there is her own anger at her belief that it is Tito who is having an affair. Both assumptions are fallacious. McGill brings plenty of comical histrionics to the role as a stereotypically overemotional Italian. Interestingly, although she doesn’t get to sing in this play, she is a classically trained singer.

Mimi Merelli, their daughter and an aspiring actress, is played by Amelia Baldock, presenting a bright and bubbly young woman in her early twenties, and in love. The humour starts early, when she and Carlo are almost caught in flagrante delicto in the hotel suite when her parents arrive, and they manically look for their scattered clothes. Unable to locate her discarded dress, she is forced to flee, scantily dressed, across the lawns. Baldock brings more laughs when Mimi starts to fall for the story that Carlo is having an affair with her mother.

Carlo Nucci, who becomes the third of the three tenors in the concert after the Swedish tenor, Jussi Björling, pulls out to go home after hearing that his mother has died, is dating Mimi, but Tito mistakenly thinks that he is having an affair with Maria. Parisya Mosel plays Carlo, nicely displaying bemusement at the goings on, and being mostly oblivious as to why he gets conflicting reactions from Tito, and from Beppo, whom he thinks is also Tito.

Tatiana Racón is a seductive Russian soprano who was Tito’s former lover and who is hoping to rekindle the affair, but it is Beppo whom she meets on her arrival, the mistaken identity adding further to the confusion, and Beppo’s delight generating more laughs. Chanelle Le Roux provides plenty of comedy in negotiating the mistaken identity, lusting after Beppo, and displaying her initial reactions when she realises that she had not been to bed with Tito, but with a bellhop.

Everything is eventually sorted out, everybody is reconciled, the concert goes ahead, and it all ends, to some degree, happily ever after, followed by a madcap silent recap of pivotal moments from the entire play, with the whole cast racing on and off the stage at breakneck speed, before the final bows.

There is more to any production, of course, than the performances. The very smart set was designed by Kristina Kidd, and lit by Michael Bentley, with the busy sound plot, filled with snatches of familiar moments from a wide range of operas, designed by Sean Smith. A few excerpts reminded me that, only a week before, I had sat in the audience for State Opera’s production of Bizet’s Carmen listening to that same music.

With the wintry weather still dragging on two-thirds of the way through Spring (it has been raining again as I write my review), we all need a good laugh to cheer us up, and the enthusiastic audience emitted many loud guffaws during this performance, with enormous applause and cheers at the close. It runs until Saturday 7th November, but don’t wait too long to book tickets.

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