The Good Old Days of Dorset G&S

Her Majesty's Teatre, East Creech, one of many theatres to witness a Thrupiece masterclass.

The Alton St Pancras Festival Theatre's revival of Gilbert and Sullivan's evergreen Gondoliers inevitably triggers memories of earlier performances during what historians now refer to as Dorset’s Golden Age of G&S. Groups - both amateur and professional - regularly took to the stage in the 1950s and 1960s offering the Victorian duo's complete canon in iconic productions in venues as varied as the Stanley Green Alhambra to the Sutton Poynz 24th Division Scout Assembly Hut.  What treasures were mined, what cultural foundations laid and what memories were created in those now far off but heady days. 

The Palace of Varieties, Ryall, which witnessed a ground-breaking modernised version of The Mikado set in Hazelbury Bryan during its notorious 1950s gangland era*. Professor Thrupiece was unavailable at the last minute [he was called to the USSR on urgent business] and his role of Poo-Bah was taken by Sir Irving Major-Hamm.

Not untypical of the career arc performers might have expected to follow was that of Professor Brian Thrupiece who, though always engaged in [but never distracted by] significant projects in non drama-related fields, regularly took to the boards: first as a child prodigy [an "an adorably naive and fetching Mabel”] in The Pirates of Penzance [1946, Canford Cliffs Pavilion], later as Sir Ruthven Murgatroyd in Ruddigore [1950 Moor Crichel Empire], Lady Sangazure in The Sorcerer [Her Majesty’s Theatre East Creech], The Defendant [Trial by Jury, Rockley Park Amphitheare], to his ultimate triumph in The Gondoliers in 1959  [Toller Whelme Odeon] just before his entry into intellectual foment of Alma Mater College, Cambridge. How often have we asked ourselves: "What if..." Perhaps, had the world of Culinary Bio-ethics not whispered its siren call, the history of the Dorset stage might have been quite different, its star rising still higher, its reputation standing even more enhanced.

* This and several other places of entertainment are featured in Section V of Dorset Icons published by the Allen-Ian wing of the Threadbone Press and available [HERE]

A performance of Iolanthe at Litton Cheney's Royalty Theatre featured a rare stage appearance by Sir Rising Crimewave who excelled as the Arcadian shepherd Strephon.

Fading star of stage [though never of screen and film] Adelaide Minor-Swingrolle recalls the young Professor's Duke of Plaza-Toro with undiminished affection and unmediated wonder: "it was a performance unmatched in my lifetime's experience of the theatre - so muscular and commanding yet so sympathetic and humane. I don’t believe anyone has ever tossed off “He led his regiment from behind” with the insouciant yet threatening charm he achieved.  The frisson felt amongst audience members seemed as one gigantic collective shudder. How he managed to keep it up for seven nights in a row mystifies me though of course we were all quite a bit younger then".

Critics agreed that the Professor had never been in more imperious form; The Mappowder Mirror's Ria Stall's noting that "even the simple folk in the Upper Balcony seemed to relish his well-honed tessiturra, applauding wildly the perfectly-placed coloratura of his exceptional lyrico-spinto tenor voice"**. Whilst the well-respected Dorset Opera and Operetta Monthly's Chief Musical Theatre Critic - Curtin Uppe - noted of his Strephon [Iolanthe, Gaity Theatre, Punknowle, 1953]: "The Professor gave a definitive performance musically but also one marked by subtle comic effect - playing the naive and gullible half-human, half-fairy shepherd like an out of sorts Latin Master forced to teach the First Form on a weather interrupted games afternoon".

** Clearly plebs were better educated and more able to appreciate voice quality in the 1950s [Ed]. Absolutely, this was pre Shirley Williams [Political Ed]

Professor Thrupiece as Sir Ruthven Murgatroyd in Ruddigore [1950 Moor Crichel Empire]

Sadly there seems to be no recording [studio, off air or theatre archived] of Professor Thrupiece at full throttle, though live theatre recording enthusiast Sonny Walkmann has made available on his niche website a recording of Sir Rising Crimewave's rendition of one of Strephon's arias from Iolanthe recorded at the Royalty Theatre, Litton Cheney. The quality of the recording is far from perfect and may not offer an accurate representation of what Lady Crimewave has described as her husband's "somewhat reedy and far from sonorous light tenor, especially evident when demanding a cup of Earl Grey and a finger biscuit". Sonny adds: "Fine as it undoubtedly is, hearing Sir Rising makes one feel all the more the absence of a definitive Thrupiece rendition". The more musical amongst us can only agree.

NEXT TIME: NEW MUSICAL REVIEW

Critic Hipp O'Drome reports on the Broadwey West End musical premier of Irina Legova's The Devil Reads Pravda