No 43 -- 1995 Edited by Michael Walters
The weekend extended over three days, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. On Thursday, the actual centenary itself, the Gilbert and Sullivan Society were hosts to Peter Pratt who talked and sang in a delightfully charming way. I retract all I said in a previous GG about him, for on this occasion he completely won me over, chatting informally in a thoroughly charming way. He sang 10 numbers in the course of the evening: Taken from a county jail and As some day it may happen, When you find you're a broken down critter, When I was a lad, If you give me your attention, Policeman's Song, Judge's Song, In enterprise of martial kind, Nightmare Song, Cobbler's Song from Chu Chin Chow and Whene'er I spoke. It will be seen that Gama is the only character of which he sang more than one song, and just before the last number, he admitted that Gama was his favourite part (a question he had hedged round earlier in the evening and not given a definite answer). As Gama is also my favourite part, I was thrilled by this discovery! Mr. Pratt also expressed the view that 1953 was the year in which the D'Oyly Carte began to go downhill. Although he elaborated no further, 1953 was about the time that Frederic Lloyd became general manager of the company. I point out these facts without any suggestion that Mr. Pratt (or I) intended any correlation between the two!
At at least one London theatre, the Palace, there was an unofficial celebration by the orchestra (fide Selwyn Tillett, who attended the performance). The Palace, was, of course, the Royal English Opera, where Ivanhoe was first performed. On that night, the orchestra instead of just warming up, played the second half of the Mikado overture.
This seems a good point at which to mention a play on BBC radio entitled The Kamikazi Ground Staff Grand Reunion Dinner by Stewart Parker, broadcast on Radio 3 on 16 December 1979. The cast included Ronald Baddiley, Graham Crowden, Ronald Herdman, John le Mesurier, Harry Towb, John Shedden and Maureen Beattie. It was the story of a group of retired Kamikazi pilots now in different walks of life, who meet each year for a reunion dinner. They all spoke with different regional English and Scottish accents, and one had the feeling that the author was trying to say that the Japanese are exactly like the British in every way. At one point one of the characters got drunk, and started singing a drunken song. It was too indistinct to be sure what it was but it sounded vaguely like a song from THE MIKADO. Clearly, the listener was meant to ask - is the author trying to tell us that Gilbert was saying the same thing? The answer came at the end of the play, when, after the last line, the chorus "If you want to know who we are" burst forth. Yes, it was deliberate.
On Friday night, at the Barbican Hall, was produced THE MIKADO by the London Savoyards with Harry Coghill (Mk), Geoffrey Shovelton (NP), John Reed (KK), Forbes Robinson (PB), Michael Wakeham (PT), Patricia Cope (YY), Yvonne Lea (PS), Ann Stuart (Pe), Gillian Knight (Ks). I was unable to get to this performance, but obtained a programme. It contained a well-written little article by Andrew Goodman. Saturday was a busy day and began with a business meeting of the Gilbert Society.
[And there my notes break off, the account of the weekend was never finished!]
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