Quite simply Cox and Box is probably the funniest and most famous of all Victorian farces. It is a musical version of Box and Cox by J. Maddison Morton and was the first operetta composed by Arthur Sullivan years before he met up with W.S.Gilbert. The adaptation and lyrics were by F.C.Burnand, one-time editor of Punch, and was first performed in 1867. The farcical situation involves a landlord who rents one room to two tenants: a printer who works by night and sleeps by day and a hatter who works by day and sleeps by night. All goes well until the hatter is given the day off and the two men meet. They argue to the point of fighting but soon realise they have much in common - they were both rejected for the Life Guards, both entered the Infantry, both are engaged to the same lady and it turns out, incredibly, that they are actually long-lost brothers!
Eric Southgate as John James Box, Doug Birchall as Bouncer and Alan Heffer as James John Cox
The Sorcerer was written in 1877 soon after the huge success of Trial by Jury and was to be the first full-length Gilbert and Sullivan Opera. Gilbert's idea was to write an English parody, a spoof, of Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore, an Italian opera about love-potions and magic. It is set deep in the heart of rural England, in a village celebrating the betrothal of Alexis, son of Sir Marmaduke Pointdextre, to Aline, daughter of Lady Sangazure. Alexis, inspired by the thought that the whole village should be as happy as he is, has employed a Sorcerer to administer a love-potion to the vicar's tea-pot! All the villagers drink the tea, fall asleep, and on awakening fall hopelessly in love with the first person, however unsuitable, they happen to see!
This typically Gilbertian plot is matched by music from Sullivan at his best. Arias, ballads, lyrical duets, waltz-songs, madrigals, country dances and large operatic choruses are included along with the famous patter-song: My Name is John Wellington Wells...
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