Albert Herring – review

The Union Jack bunting looks awfully familiar – and indeed, if anyone foolishly wanted to update Albert Herring then 2012 would be the year, with the Loxford May Day feast as an early Jubilee street party and Mrs Herring as the proprietor of the local Costcutter. But Britten's comedy was a period piece even when it was written, in 1947, and so it must remain.

Britten's opera about a town where a shy greengrocer's son is elected King of the May in the absence of any local female virgin is the light relief in English Touring Opera's autumn season. Christopher Rolls stages it neatly in the cage-like room of Neil Irish's set, with Michael Rosewell conducting the excellent Aurora Orchestra. Rolls's direction is sharp and keenly observed. From the flirtation between vicar and schoolmistress to Albert's unconsciously priapic handling of the fruit and veg, he ensures the subtext of sexual repression is barely sub at all. This is not laugh-a-minute comedy, but there's a lot to smile at. If the pace occasionally sags, that is as much the fault of the work as of its presentation; even the usually acerbic Britten occasionally lets his audience get too comfortable.

Mark Wilde's strongly sung Albert gets the balance between innocence and anger just right, though his nervous tic is a clumsy directorial detail. Charles Rice and Martha Jones are well matched as Sid and Nancy, and Rosie Aldridge is wonderfully plummy as the disapproving housekeeper Florence Pike. She, we sense, has not had much trouble resisting the temptations offered by men, and nor has her employer; but the terrifying do-gooder Lady Billows should get more laughs. Jennifer Rhys-Davies moves across the stage like a battleship, and you can hear every one of her directives if you listen, but they should really hit you like a jabbing finger in the solar plexus.