mikado mayhem

Many people have heard the songs of the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta The Mikado so many times that they can sing every word. The catchy melodies and the witty libretto have made this the best-loved of the works of the two brilliant collaborators. The gory subject of beheading becomes a comic situation when the Lord High Executioner, himself under threat of beheading, devises a brilliant scheme to avoid having to execute any one. The characters are larger-than-life with probably the most extreme being Katisha, the woman whose admirers come from miles around to view her left elbow.

As part of our on-going fortnightly series A Season of G & S on Saturdays at 2pm, you can hear The Mikado on the 10th and the lesser-known but most delightful Ruddigore on the 24th.