Pirates of Penzance

All-male version of Gilbert & Sullivan's Pirates of Penzance.

On 10 December 1879 Lambeth-born Arthur Sullivan had written a letter to his mother about a new opera which he was working on in New York.

"I think that it will be a great success, for it is exquisitely funny and the music is strikingly tuneful."

True enough, The Pirates of Penzance was an immediate hit and takes its place today as one of the most popular and enduring pieces of Gilbert & Sullivan's work.

In The Pirates of Penzance, Frederic was as a child apprenticed to a band of tenderhearted, orphaned pirates by his nurse who, being hard of hearing, had mistaken her master's instructions to apprentice the boy to a pilot.

Frederic, upon completing his 21st year, rejoices that he has fulfilled his indentures and is now free to return to respectable society. But it turns out that he was born on 29 February in leap year, and he remains apprenticed to the pirates until his 21st birthday.

By the end of the opera, the pirates, a Major General who knows nothing of military strategy, his large family of beautiful but unwed daughters, and the timid constabulary all contribute to a cacophony that can be silenced only by Queen Victoria's name.

This will be the third all-male G & S at The Union following the previous all- male H.M.S. Pinafore and Mikado.

With a cast of eighteen to tell the story it should be an exciting rehearsal process.

Director Sasha Regan most recently directed Sweeney Todd alongside her musical Director Christopher Mundy, for which they both received glowing reviews. Their team will be completed with the choreographer Lizzi Gee.