Sasha Regan and her All-male Company brings The Pirates Of Penzance, one of W. S. Gilbert & Arthur Sullivan’s best-known classic operettas, to the home of D’Oyly Carte opera on Sunday 13th December for one night. Originally known as The Royal English Opera House, the Palace Theatre was founded by Richard D’Oyly Carte in 1891 and opened with Sir Arthur Sullivan’s Ivanhoe.
The merry band of pirates and their winsome lasses sail into the Palace Theatre with their inventive new take on Gilbert & Sullivan’s classic operetta. Features a shipshape cast singing songs including: “I am a Pirate King”; “Oh, happy day, with joyous glee” and “A rollicking band of pirates we”, they are sure to raise the roof off the Palace Theatre!
Expect plenty of onboard japes from the swashbuckling crew who are braving the high seas with rum and hand-sanitisers to bring you a socially distanced, Covid-secure show. A joyous and much needed escape for families and friends.
The production was first staged at The Union Theatre in the heart of Southwark over a decade ago where it was a runaway success winning Best Off-West End Production at The WhatsOnStage Awards in 2009. Pirates transferred to Wilton’s Music Hall for a 6-week run and on to The Rose Theatre, Kingston before the All-male Company set sale on a tour of Australia culminating in a month-long run at Cate Blanchett’s prestigious Sydney Theatre. There was a subsequent UK Tour in 2015 and another critically acclaimed run at Wilton’s Music Hall last year.
During this troubling time of Covid-19 Sasha Regan’s company is bringing a well-known operetta from its humble beginnings at the Union Theatre over a decade ago to the original home of the Savoy operas – a remarkable feat. The Company hopes that 141 years after it ran at New York’s Fifth Avenue Theatre in 1879, followed by its London début the following year at Opera Comique and later at the Savoy Theatre, that audiences of all ages will fall in love with this beautifully written operetta performed in a Victorian theatre created for this work.
