The Mikado

Half a Sixpence

Smashing Time

Red and Blue

Two a Penny

February

What was it about Gilbert (W. S.) and Sullivan (A.) that held Britain in their grip from the beginning of the D’Oyly Carte Opera Company in 1879 until the company’s closure in 1982? For 103 years, without pause except for a brief annual holiday, the operas of William Schwenck Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan (both became Sirs) were performed nightly (plus two matinees each week), filling forty-eight weeks of each year, in London, in the provinces, and frequently abroad. This is an unequalled achievement in theatrical history. The facts and figures and dates and locations and changes of cast and the noting of understudy replacements are painstakingly available in the extraordinarily detailed volume Record of Productions 1875–1961, with even more mind-boggling information in two loose-leaf supplements, respectively for 1961–66 and 1966–71. This exemplary documentation is pure oxygen for the Gilbert and Sullivan geek.

In 1966, the company was still in fine fettle. The Mikado remained the most popular work in the repertoire (from which some of the lesser-known operas such as Princess Ida and The Sorcerer had fallen away). Much travelled and no doubt physically shabby after its tremendous journeying, Gilbert’s Japanese fantasia was singled out by the management as due for refreshment: a rare decision, as many of the operas remained almost unaltered from their original productions. The new, spruced-up Mikado had the benefit of new décor by Disley Jones, as in his sylvan setting for Yum-Yum’s ‘The Sun Whose Rays’ in Act II, which perfectly framed Valerie Masterson’s liquid singing. In fact, Anthony Besch’s new stage production in 1964 refreshed the work rather than reimagined it, and it was this version that Stuart Burge filmed for BHE Presentations’ The Mikado, produced by Anthony Havelock-Allan and John Brabourne. It seems clear that Burge’s intention was not to adapt Besch’s production for the screen, but to film it as a ‘live’ performance, given ‘cold’, as it was re-enacted on stage at the Hippodrome, Golders Green, without benefit of an audience.