Another sparkling show … over!

This wasn’t the final fully-dressed version of the curtain call, just an intermediate version, but is intended to give you a flavour of what the show looked like until such time as the video is available.

As you can read in the programme (downloadable from this link), this year’s production of Patience was a modernised version of the original opera which first opened in 1881 at the Opera Comique Theatre in London. The music and characters were unchanged, but we updated parts of the libretto and set the action around the Elstree Studios at Borehamwood, from where Strictly Come Dancing is broadcast. Another change was that in the original work the title role of Patience was a milkmaid. This was fine in 1881, but you don’t get many milkmaids in Borehamwood in 2026, so her occupation was upgraded to a florist!

There were other changes and updates that you might expect … for example, Colonel Calverley’s recipe for a Heavy Dragoon omitted the obscure references to historical characters that are the delight of G&S aficionados … but all Sullivan’s delightful music was there, even if ‘lovesick maidens’ morphed into ‘star-struck ladies’. And there were many nods in the direction of Elstree, with the glamorous Archibald ‘Anton’ Grosvenor wooing all the ladies, and the guardsmen donning evening wear – even sequins in one case – ready for the inevitable dancing.

There was of course a twist! Patience audiences are usually glad for Jane, in our production wittily embodied by our Honorary President, when the Duke chooses her as his bride, leaving Bunthorne “to be contented with a tulip or lily”. But when our Duke fancies the elegant Algernon … “dashed again!”

Needless to say, great fun was had by all, both on the stage and in the audience. Next stop, the Buxton International G&S Festival in August, when we shall be reprising The Jury’s Out in a semi-staged concert performance.

We’d love to have feedback on what you thought of the show, so we can create an archive page in due course. Please email your thoughts and reviews to martin@dgass.org.uk.