Yet Mike Leigh fashioned a visually arresting, strikingly authentic look at the creative duo who more or less formed a template for all the musical comedy writing teams of the 20th century. W.S. Gilbert (Jim Broadbent) wrote the book (that is, the plot) and the lyrics, while Arthur Sullivan (Allan Corduner) composed the music. Their pairing, which ran from 1871 to 1896, resulted in fourteen comic operas, some of which, such as The Pirates of Penzance and HMS Pinafore, are regularly revived today. (By contrast, who among us has seen--or can even name-- a show by Harrigan and Hart, 19th century America’s nearest analogue to G&S?)

While the partnership was phenomenally successful, it had its stresses. It’s one of those stressful periods Leigh deals with, setting his film in 1884, at a time when Sullivan, always sickly from kidney problems, was feeling pressured both by the need to keep turning out hits to support a sybaritic lifestyle and by his desire to compose serious music. Sullivan was also beginning to tire of composing within the framework of Gilbert’s increasingly repetitive plots, which leaned heavily on everything being turned “topsy turvy” by sorcerers, or magic potions, or enchanted coins or some other piece of arbitrary mumbo jumbo.

After the relative failure of their new work Princess Ida, Sullivan announces to Gilbert and to the head of the Savoy Opera Company, Richard D’Oly Carte (Ron Cook), who has them under contract, that he will no longer compose such works and rejects Gilbert’s new piece of “topsy-turvydom.” Gilbert, very much a workaholic, despairs at being stalled and, as the film would have it, soon accidentally takes a vital step toward artistic maturation when his wife Kitty (Lesley Manville) convinces him to visit a Japanese exposition then in London. Fascinated by the exhibit, Gilbert is freed by his exposure to an alien culture, letting the fantastic nature of Japanese dress and mores provide the spark he had been getting by rote from his topsy turvy plot devices.

The result, of course, was The Mikado, hardly a model of naturalist theater by 21st century standards, but quite the breakthrough for G&S. Once Topsy Turvy reaches this juncture, Mike Leigh, who trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, reveals his theatrical roots by turning his film into a backstage drama that shows how painful and exacting the creative process can be, especially for actors who had to work for W.S. Gilbert.

As played by Jim Broadbent, Gilbert is a hard-driving director who demands authenticity from his performers, hiring women from the Japanese exposition to show his players how to walk and fan themselves in the authentic Nipponese style. He even decrees his actresses won’t wear corsets under their kimonos, a shock to ladies who prize showing off hourglass figures on stage. Gilbert’s explanation that the Japanese don’t wear corsets seems absurd to performers who wear such gear precisely because they are performers. Leigh is showing us the birth of the modern theatrical sensibility, midwifed by a man who previously couldn’t care a fig about realism.

While engrossing, this leaves Alan Corduner, whose Sullivan is a flashier character with a taste for the demi-monde, not much to do but rehearse his orchestra and singers, scenes which do little for the story except give Corduner equal screen time. Leigh also misguidedly takes us into the backstage/offstage lives of several members of the opera company, adding plot points about bad legs and drinking problems that crop up randomly to ultimately no affect. The result is that Topsy Turvy winds up a whopping two hours and forty minutes long, weighed down by scenes that are entertaining of themselves, but superfluous.

The one thing Leigh leaves out, oddly enough, is any look at Gilbert working over his lyrics. How a man presented as tough and biting could write some of the most whimsical, rhythmically demanding verses in English is a conundrum. And proof, perhaps, that creativity is naturally a topsy-turvy business.