gilbert and sullivan

[eddiemairswife]

They always lift my spirits.

Great stuff! My favourites were 'Get Down' and 'Claire.'

I always assumed that Gilbert O’Sullivan was a totally made-up stage name. But having googled him I discover that he’s Ray O’Sullivan, so only the Gilbert is a jokey pseudonym. That was an enjoyable 10 minutes of poking about online.

And I dislike operetta very much.

I need to get out more.

I have a little list.
What never? No never.
Dear little Buttercup.

Have you just heard I Have A Song To Sing, O on the Radio 3 playlister?

I go around the house singing the snippets of G&S songs that pop into my head, appropriate to the given situation. My partner never complains.

Well, hardly ever.

I too am a fan. But only see it on utube these days , never performed on stage by local
amateur companies as was common when l was a child.
Many of the songs have relevance today.

Stick close to your desks and never go to sea
And you all may be Ruler of the Queen's navy.

My Mother was a huge G&S fan. There was a local amateur G&S company that put on a show every year, so we always went.

I loved it, the exuberance, the humour, the clever lyrics...

In later years, I went to see various professional G&S productions, but those shows from my childhood still held a warm place in my heart. I only have to hear a few bars of the music to remember so sharply those happy times.

😂

I've seen most of them on stage over the years, including the rarely performed Utopia. My favourite is The Sorcerer.

We have a local amateur group that the girls have done a couple with when they were younger. Yoeman of the Guard was one.
But they put an appeal out for children to the local schools to join them and they had 4 girls (my two, granddaughter of one of the cast, and another) and two boys (teacher was in the cast)
Sad how few came forward, compare it to when another local group did Sound of music, and they had about 120 girls auditioning from miles around.

My favourite line is about parliament in Iolanthe "They have to leave their brains outside, and vote just as the leaders lell 'em to"

Beautifully true today

Do you mean Gilbert & Sullivan or Gilbert O'Sullivan? I think this thread is mixing up the two!

Lots of relevance to today. My favourite “I’ve got a little list ….”

Remember when pans people danced to 'Get Down' with bemused dogs 😂

I hate operetta. I stuck my fingers in my ears for the G and S scenes in Chariots of Fire when it was on the BBC recently.

I think OP meant G & S.
Didn't Wilde and G & S have a bit of a spat? I think in the opening scene of the importance of being Earnest, the piano is deliberately played off key, and it's a 'wink, wink, nudge, nudge' to their err creative differences!
Anyway I love a bit of G & S, HMS pinafore and the Pirates of Penzance are two of my favourites, never like the mikado though.

Patience is a massive piss-take of the aesthetic movement, and one of the main characters is a parody of Wilde, so yes, they may have had beef. I imagine it was a lot like the East Coast and West Coast hip-hip rivalry in the 90s*.

*1990s.

The year above me (12 year olds) did The Mikado as their end of year production. Not quite sure it would be allowed today.

Totally and uniquely British, of course. And wasn't Star Trek the richer for it ?

I went to see a local production of The Mikado only a couple of years ago!

Thank goodness !!

Our high school used to do G&S when my older brothers were there though sadly not by the time I was. DF was a teacher, he took part too. We had the records ... I could sing large chunks of it (i reckon I could do a fair bit of Ruddigore now, over 50 years later )

They're so very singable.

Pirates of Penzance is my favourite , there is a fantastic version on YouTube by the Australian opera company . We’ve got tickets for an all male production in Bath in December .

I love Pirates too, every song is an absolute banger.

All-male productions give me feminist rage though. There aren’t enough decent female roles in the theatre as it is, without soi-disant edgy directors deciding they need to be all peen.

I wonder what G&S would have felt about it ? No reason not to have female players in their day, surely ?

The principals in the D’Oyly Carte were stars, men and women both. A new G&S opera was big - I like to think like a summer blockbuster. The productions used to go on US tours too.

It’s a company that has been going for quite a few years and it’s quite difficult to find a full scale production unless you go to Buxton during the festival , which we couldn’t do this year .