"The company has a reputation for quality and this production was brilliant"
Western Morning News on Trial by Jury and HMS Pinafore, 1999

The Plymouth Gilbert and Sullivan Fellowship

A History

The Plymouth Gilbert and Sullivan Fellowship celebrated its 80^th anniversary in October 2003 and it is believed to be the oldest continuing performing society devoted to the works of W S Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan in the United Kingdom, now in its 87^th year.

 

The Fellowship was formed in October 1923 by Mr Horace Bickle. The previous year he had been in London as a law student when a chance conversation with two prominent members of the D’Oyly Carte Opera Company, Sir Henry Lytton and Darrell Fancourt, prompted him to set up a society devoted to ‘G&S’ on his return to Plymouth. Its object was to promote and preserve the works of both Gilbert and Sullivan. A contemporary newspaper article reported: “There seems little doubt that the Gilbert and Sullivan Fellowship, whose first session commenced last evening in the Lockyer Hall, is to receive cordial support from a large body of Plymouth musicians.” (Western Morning News and Mercury, 24^th October 1923).

 

The first production was, of course, The Mikado in March 1924 at The Repertory Theatre in Plymouth. The producer, W G Lennox, and principal tenor, Gordon Crocker (playing Nanki-Poo), were both former members of the D’Oyly Carte Opera Company; the other principals were chosen by vote of the Fellowship members at an open audition! The chorus was so large that it was divided into sections which played on different nights. All did not run smoothly, however, and the day before the dress rehearsal Gordon Crocker sent a telegram to say that he’d had an accident and could not appear. As a result Horace Bickle found himself on a train to London with an appointment to see Rupert D’Oyly Carte. Bickle recounted: “On hearing my trouble he said he had no spare tenors and when I suggested that perhaps we could borrow an understudy he told me he did not keep understudies for ******* amateurs. Perhaps his secretary could help me if I saw her on the way out. As I was walking out of his room he said, ‘By the way, there will be no charge for your accommodation.’”

 

Bickle spent a night gratis at the Savoy Hotel and they even provided pyjamas as he had left Plymouth in such a hurry that he had forgotten to pack an overnight bag. The next day he was able to find the young tenor Dewi Gibson at his lodgings and told him: “You are playing Nanki in The Mikado at Plymouth tonight and for the rest of the week.” Dewey replied that he had never acted with amateurs to which Bickle replied that now was his chance and he might learn something! Bickle remembered: “At 7-30 I went before the curtain to apologise for Gordon Crocker and to present the Fellowship to the people of Plymouth. The overture was played and just as it was finishing Dewey was not ready so I slipped a note to the orchestra to play the overture again. I think this is the only time that it received an encore.”

 

Since 1924 the company has produced 89 fully-staged productions of the Savoy Operas and also Lehar’s The Merry Widow in 2009 at Plymouth theatres including The Repertory, The Globe, The Palace, The Athenaeum and (from 1983) the Theatre Royal. We have also presented busy concert programmes every season, raising thousands of pounds for charities throughout the southwest region of England. Particularly memorable were the annual Christmas Concerts at the Plymouth Guildhall and a number of appearances with HM Band of the Royal Marines (Plymouth) and “A Feast of Gilbert and Sullivan” with Much Loved Productions at the Plymouth Pavilions.

 

Popular operas have each been performed as many as ten times since 1924, two productions of The Yeomen of the Guard were presented within the walls of the Royal Citadel on Plymouth Hoe and we even performed HMS Pinafore on board HMS Antelope before she was sunk during the Falklands War. Even the less popular of the Savoy Operas, Utopia Ltd, The Grand Duke and The Zoo have all been produced at least once.

 

Despite its long heritage the Fellowship has not confined itself to traditional versions of the operas, although it has not gone to the other extreme of staging productions which stray too far from the original music and libretti. Even so, some of the modernised productions will not have met with the approval of our founder, Horace Bickle, who would have preferred the movement and costumes of original D’Oyly Carte to be preserved intact. On seeing the Fellowship’s production of “The Pirates of Penzance” in 1984 he commented that it was “very good musical comedy, but very bad Gilbert and Sullivan”!

 

The company has moved with the times and in 1997 Alan Spencer’s production of “Iolanthe” (two weeks before the General Election) with its raunchy fairies under their Cruella de Vil lookalike Fairy Queen and references to anti-sleaze MPs, won the NODA Regional Award for Excellence. This heralded further innovative productions by Alan Spencer including a 1940s “Trial by Jury/HMS Pinafore” (1999), an Edwardian “The Mikado” (2000), an award-winning 1920s “The Gondoliers” with a Charleston-style Cachucha (2001), a very modern Eastern-Bloc style “Princess Ida” (2002) and a 1930s “Iolanthe” complete with Busby Berkley-inspired fairies and choreography (2005)! Along the way we have balanced this innovation with faithful readings of a double award-winning “The Pirates of Penzance” in 2003, “The Yeomen of the Guard” in 2004, a beautifully rustic “The Sorcerer” in 2006, “The Mikado” (2007), “HMS Pinafore” (2008) and in 2009 we made history by presenting our first non-G&S production, a stunning production of Franz Lehar’s “The Merry Widow” which was critically acclaimed and marks a change in our constitution and artistic policy – we now intend to mix our presentation of the Savoy Operas with similar pieces by others, i.e. light opera, opera and musicals that require a classical approach. 

 

In 2009 the Fellowship recorded its second CD with HM Band of the Royal Marines (Plymouth) for the RNLI – “The Magic of Gilbert and Sullivan”, available to buy now – and we have exciting plans for future projects as we aim to raise the funds needed to return to performing in the Theatre Royal.

 

Our 2010 production is to be an exciting new production of “Ruddigore” (not staged by the Fellowship since 1993), with the professional production team of director Alan Spencer, conductor Dr Paul Foster and designer Andy Martin. This production will also mark the Fellowship’s debut at The Devonport Playhouse. For further details of “Ruddigore” 2010 please see ‘Future Productions’.

 

These notes were compiled by Pauline Smith and Gareth Davies