The Mikado
Author(s):
Music by Arthur Sullivan, libretto by W S Gilbert
Running time:
2h 10min approx
Age recommendation:
6+ years
One of G&S’s most famous operettas, featuring the songs “A Wand’ring Minstrel I”, “Behold the Lord High Executioner” and “Three little maids from school are we”, The Mikado is traditionally set in Japan.
But this production pokes playful fun at British politics and institutions by transposing the storyline to an all-boys school in 1950s England.
A school camping trip is visiting the far away land of Titipu—a place where flirting is banned on pain of death and where tailors can become Lord High Executioners but cannot cut off another’s head, until they have cut off their own!
Sasha Regan’s idea to transform these much-loved classics into all-male productions stems from her own experience performing Gilbert and Sullivan at a single-sex school.