The Pirates of Penzance

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Gilbert & Sullivan

The Pirates of Penzance has been well loved for over a century. Performed by various opera companies, including the D’Oyly Carte Opera Company. As the fifth collaboration by Gilbert and Sullivan, it has been performed on Broadway, imitated by various companies, and modernised into film. A true comic opera of two acts. Officially premiering at the Fifth Avenue Theatre, New … Read More

Top 10 Gilbert & Sullivan Facts

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Gilbert and Sullivan Facts

The wonderful partnership of Gilbert & Sullivan produced memorable comic operas. Although the partnership wasn’t always smooth sailing, it was a lasting friendship. This continued throughout the mens lives right until the end. Theirs was a partnership that had a massive impact on boosting the career of both men. And helped shape the future of musical theatre.  Discover our ten … Read More

The portraits of W.S. Gilbert

Samantha PillingHistory

The National Portrait Gallery currently has 13 portraits associated to Sir William Schwenck Gilbert.  What’s interesting about all of Gilbert’s portraits is how they all show him as a natural sitter. His relaxed stance is evident in all of those later years portraits and he seems to be equally at home in front of a painter or a camera. Harry … Read More

W.S. Gilbert’s Dulcamara

Samantha PillingHistory

Dulcamara, otherwise known as The Little Duck and the Great Quack, was W.S. Gilbert’s first piece of stage-work. It came about through a chance conversation between Tom Robertson and Miss Herbert, lessee of Saint James’s Theatre in London. Miss Herbert was after a Christmas piece – the only downside was she needed it written in a fortnight!  Dulcamara, or The … Read More

Gilbert & Sullivan Reunited over Utopia, Limited

Samantha PillingHistory

Following on from the infamous ‘carpet quarrel’, Gilbert and Sullivan had gone their separate ways. However, Carte and his wife worked unsuccessfully, to reconcile the pair. In 1891. Tom Chappell stepped in to mediate and, two weeks later, they reconciled. This resulted in two more operas – Utopia, Limited being one of them. Production on Utopia, Limited Work didn’t immediately … Read More

John Harvey, W.S. Gilbert and the boat that bonded them

Samantha PillingHistory

John Harvey was a yacht builder from Essex. Father to actor, Sir Martin Harvey, he designed and built W.S. Gilbert’s second boat – the Chloris, a 110 ton yawl with a lead keel. During the spring of 1881 W.S. Gilbert spent a lot of time corresponding with John Harvey about his new yacht. It was nearly twice the size of … Read More

Victorian Composer Frederic Clay

Samantha PillingHistory

English composer Frederic Clay, was a great friend of Arthur Sullivan, who he subsequently introduced to W.S. Gilbert at the Gallery. Together, Clay and Gilbert produced four comic operas, before a stroke paralysed Clay at the age of 44 and cut short his productive life. Cay died in 1889, aged 51 when he was found drowned in the bath at … Read More

Arthur Playfair – The dancing corporal

Samantha PillingHistory

Arthur Wyndham Playfair was an actor and singer. He appeared in a couple of William Schwenck Gilbert’s operas, as well as Edwardian musical comedies, and also created roles in Victorian burlesques. Born on the 20th October in 1869, Playfair started life in Ellichpur, a city in the Indian state of Maharashtra. He made his first appearance on the British stage … Read More

Marie Litton – English actress and theatre manager

Samantha PillingHistory

Picture of old theatre

Born Mary Jessie Lowe in 1847, Marie Litton was an English actress who made her Haymarket debut playing Zayda, in Gilbert’s ‘The Wicked World’, in 1873. She went on to become a theatre manager who produced several of W.S. Gilbert’s plays. Marie Litton’s stage debut Marie Litton made her London stage debut playing the title character in Dion Boucicault’s play … Read More

W.S. Gilbert’s fairy play: The Wicked World

Samantha PillingHistory

Wicked World

The Wicked World was W.S. Gilbert’s third fairy play. It was a dramatization of Gilbert’s own illustrated story ‘The Wicked World’, originally published in Tom Hood’s 1871 ‘Comic Annual’. This half joking dramatization took Gilbert several months to write. It centred on the action within a twenty-four-hour period, focusing on a fairyland scene floating above the world. Broken down into … Read More