Mike Leigh's ornate, elaborate story of two years of struggle in the lives of light opera composers WS Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan is equal parts fun and not much fun, concentrating both on the darker sides of the lives of the composers and the rehearsals for The Mikado. The threads in this never pull together to produce a narrative flow despite the rich performance of Allan Corduner as the pleasure-loving Sullivan and the excellence of Jim Broadbent as the crusty Gilbert.