Leading Gondoliers

Those at the front of the gondola for our forthcoming production include:

• Geoff Pope and Alan Russell (Bunthorne in Patience) as Marco and Guiseppe Palmieri
• Sally Ann Gretton (Patience) as Gianetta, and Anna Scutt as Tessa; their adoring girlfriends/wives
• Sandy Tyndale-Biscoe (The Duke - Patience) and Linda Thomas as the Duke and Duchess of Plaza-Toro
• Jo Allford-Gretton as Casilda, their beautiful daughter betrothed in infancy to the Crown Prince of Barataria whose identity we cannot possibly reveal, other than to say that she is currently in love with ...
• Luiz, played by Derek Rowse, the 'suite' and drummer boy to the Duke
• Hugh Slater as Don Alhambra del Bolero, the Grand Inquisitor (whom nobody expects)
• Hilary Pheonix as Inez, the nursemaid and foster-mother to the young prince and, coincidentally, mother to Luiz
• ... and then there is that wonderful and ravishing chorus of Gondolieri, and Contadine dancing a cachuca or two  

And if that does not give away the plot then the leetle grey cells are not working hard enough.

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The Gondoliers glossary

We are at last, allowed some Italian: the divine language of opera and love. Never mind the meaning just roll the phrases around you mouth. Per chi questi fiori bellissimi? or Gondolieri carissimi! Siamo contadine! 

How could you fail to dream that you are floating down the Grand Canal, dipping into a cornetto, a gorgeous gondolier swooshing his oar into the canal or fending off the enclosing walls in a narrow channel, while singing a Venetian love song ...

Oh, you want to know what they mean? Well try this for a glossary of some of the words in this sublime piece.

Signorina, io t’amo! Of happiness the very pith indeed. 

Patient trivia

Have you spotted:

The references to mediaevalism ... the Victorians were fascinated with the past. The Houses of Parliament were built in the 1830s, the same time as St Pancras station, in what we now regard as Victorian Gothic. The same style runs through the paintings of the Pre-Raphaelites (founded 1848). The love-sick maidens demand 'Early English' - the purist form of Gothic - out the Dragoons.

Bunthorne's poem makes little sense. Swinburne was often accused of using the word that sounded right for the verse rather than the word that made sense. It is yet another example of Gilbert's ability to parody others.  Grosvenor's poem on the other hand, sounds like, and probably is, straight out of Gilbert's own Bab Ballads: a moral tale, tightly told.

And you had spotted, of course, that Grosvenor is the family name of the Dukes of Westminster who owns large chunks of ... Westminster including Grosvenor Square.