I CALL YOU BROTHER STILL ... by James Skeggs

It was during the 1976-77 season of D'Oyly Carte at Sadlers Wells, that I took my young brother to see his first Gilbert & Sullivan opera. It was The Mikado. The whole venture was an experiment on my account to see how he would react. I myself was a devoted G & S fan; Tommy, my little brother, had never heard any of the Savoy operas. The only time he had ever heard the music of Sullivan was at Sunday School when he sang "Onward Christian Soldiers". It never did him any good because at seven years of age he was expelled. The church gave up on him. He had heard snatches of the operas on my recordings. I would be playing my records and Tommy would stick his head around the door. "What're playing ?" he would ask. "Pirates of Penzance" I reply. "Ugh!" he answered. He would then shut the door on a rollicking band of Pirates while complaining that I hogged the stereogram. It was incidents like these that led me to purchase two tickets for The Mikado. I asked little brother if he would come to the performance with me, "OK, West Ham are playing away." (What is the magic in a game of football?). It was a matinee performance, and luckily had a very good audience. A bad audience can have an alarming effect on the performance, very often ruining it. We both sat waiting for the performance to start. The lights went down. "Is it another blackout?" Tommy asked. "No," I replied, "it's the Overture." There was a puzzled silence from the seat next to me. Overture and Act 1 passed. "Are you enjoying it?" I asked. "Yes". Pause. "Can I have an ice cream?". I was under the impression that, if the little horror could have done, he would have gone home or to a football match. I was enjoying myself, however, and he would have to lump it. I bought him an ice cream and after following a request of mother nature, we returned to our seats. It took me completely by surprise when the intelligent little soul next to me asked ''Why's it called The Mikado? He hasn't been on yet." He had been taking some interest in the performance. During the second act I kept watching my blood relation to see if he was still awake. He slumped back in his chair looking bored to tears. My high hopes which were raised in the interval were lowered again. He was not enjoying himself. At the end of the performance he clapped his hands together because everyone else did. After the performance I went to the box-office to order a ticket for next week. To my surprise little brother asked if he could come. It stunned me. So he was enjoying himself in his own little way. As it happened we went to see The Pirates of Penzance and The Gondoliers. Little brother could boast of knowing something nobody else did. In his music classes at school he answered the questions on Sullivan without difficulty. Astounding ; I thought that the little brain box had been bored stiff with the whole episode. Really, the fact that he saw three of the Savoy Operas proves the fact that they are not dead by a long way. It is a nice thought that among all the drums and electric guitars that thud their way into our lives there is a place in the youngest heart for Gilbert and Sullivan. This past season of 1977-78 at Sadlers Wells brought me a disappointment. I asked younger brother if he would like to see one of the operas. "What," he cried. "Miss West Ham and watch that boring stuff. You must think I'm mad." To think I had once thought that he was my first convert. It was a great upset. Even if he was only one's little brother.

[James Skeggs, besides being a G & S fan, is a ballet dancer, and recently, he made his debut at Covent Garden as one of the beach boys in Death in Venice (an opera which sounds, correctly, as if it had been written for Peter Pears to sing.) He is 18 years old. I met him, as stated in the last GG on last New Year's Eve at Sadlers Wells Theatre because we happened to be sitting beside each other, and I spoke to him at the interval. Being of a basically shy disposition, I rarely speak to perfect strangers sitting next to me; but on this occasion something told me to do so. Life is very unpredictable, and sometimes the best of friends result from chance meetings. James told me that he wrote this article, and then left it sitting around for some weeks because he was afraid to send it to me - fearing that it might be thought unsuitable for these pages. "You've never printed anything like that before", he remarked. Only because no-one has ever before sent me anything quite so touching and delectable. But then, surely such charm and style is only to be expected from one sensitive enough to be both a G & S nut and a ballet-dancer. Ed.]

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