Interesting. I don’t like musicals at all*, but I was brought up with Gilbert & Sullivan (my parents met through one of the country’s leading G&S societies), and as soon as I saw the title I thought, “Hello… something about Pinafore?”.

The thing about them – and I only began to realise this when, latterly, my parents’ society started doing more modern stuff** – is that Sullivan was a bloody good composer and Gilbert knew how to write for the stage. They were really aiming at opera, not theatre (Yeomen actually is one, in the strict sense that there’s no spoken dialogue), and followed those conventions. West End musicals on the other hand, tend to follow the pattern of the screen, with loads of scene changes and underscoring. (Not to mention the unison chorus stuff.) It’s spectacular, but somehow doesn’t really work. They’re a bit like those AAA games that substitute cutscenes and QTEs for gameplay. Great looking, but ultimately unsatisfying.

The trouble with G&S is that most people’s experience of it is from school or church hall productions, so they think it’s a bit cheap and nasty. But when it’s done well, it’s terrific.

“And not just because it had women with bare nipples in it. In a kid’s cartoon! Honestly.”

Crikey.

*As one of my dad’s employees used to say, “You’re just beginning to enjoy the play, and they all burst out singing. It’s distracting.”

**They did Sweeney Todd one year, actually. One of the better ones, I have to admit. They lost about thirty grand on it. Those modern things are expensive, too.