It maintains the opera’s timeless charm, strong wit, and with a cast that never takes itself seriously, leads to an evening that has the audience roaring with laughter.
The Victorian penchant for the Gothic and the macabre is well known. It was seen in everything from architecture to popular novels – the blighted ruin created as a folly in aristocratic gardens, the grand guignol madness of the stage heroine, the séance as an after-dinner entertainment. Paranormal researchers looked for evidence of ghosts and even Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of that most logical of sleuths, Sherlock Holmes, believed in fairies. It was inevitable then, given this ubiquity, that Gilbert and Sullivan would have a pop at it, as they had already done with so many English institutions and foibles. Ruddigore (originally titled Ruddygore) is set in the quintessentially English village of Rederring, a place that unusually employed a team of professional bridesmaids. However, when we meet them they are mourning their lack of a wedding – no one has married for six months and they spend every day on duty from ten to four with nothing to do. Their hopes are pinned on Rose