Gilbert and Sullivan Archive

THE MIKADO DISCUSSION

Mikadiana

9.1 Web Sites
9.2 Mikado Quotes
9.3 Parliamentary Trains?
9.4 Train(?) Spotting
9.5 A Minstrel's Anecdote


9.1 Web Sites

Steve Sullivan wrote: The Web Sites that I know of for The Mikado are:

The Gilbert and Sullivan Archive Mikado pages
http://www.cris.com/~oakapple/gasdisc/mik.html

9.2 Mikado Quotes

Judith Weis wrote: This week's issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education has an article called "Sexual Harassment: Let the Punishment fit the Crime." Within the text of the article is a heading that "Title IX does not ban flirtation." I wonder how many people who use "punishment fit the crime" and other quotes know what they are quoting from. Sara Hoskinson Frommer replied: Probably about as many as know when they're quoting Romeo and Juliet or Macbeth. Good lines go into the language, and we're all the richer for them.

And Andrew Crowther observed: .. Or indeed whether they realise they're quoting the view of a man with a notoriously sadistic sense of humour! (The Mikado, I mean, Gilbert!) John C Searight added: Every time I hear one of these present-day maniacs ranting about how we need to make everything that's not mandatory a felony and execute all felons, (we get a lot of them in California) I also hear, in the background, a faint "My Object All Sublime...". The people that could most profit from an understanding of the song, however, are those most likely to completely miss the point.

9.3 Parliamentary Trains?

Harriet Meyer wrote: At An Evening With Donald Adams put on by the Chicago Gilbert and Sullivan Society some time in the 1980s, Donald Adams related that he was stuck on a stopped train into London alongside a family increasingly agitated about being late.

"Where are you going?" he asked.
"We're going to see the Mikado".
"I AM the Mikado!"

Jeremy Spillett quipped: What Donald Adams knew - and presumably the family going to see him didn't -was that he had nearly an hour and a half longer to get there than they had!

9.4 Train(?) Spotting

Sandy Rovner spotted: Behold the Lord High Executioner as background music to a dinner on House of Eliot, the current Brit soaper on PBS. David Duffey wrote: Despite being one who for all his professional life advocated the need for students to be as adept in decoding televisual messages as printed text, I have not much interest in popular television. My son, however, forced me to sit in front of the screen yesterday telling me that there was a G&S connection. It was "The Simpsons", and yes, there was The Mikado and "H M S Pinafore". But more than that, the programme was exceptionally well written and very funny. Is there any other programme I should know about?

9.5 A Minstrel's Anecdote

Nick Sales offered the following: At last Thursday's rehearsal, at a break in proceedings following my rendering of "A Wand'ring Minstrel", Larraine, our accompanist, called me over to the piano, where she was in the process of devouring a bag of chocolate treats known as "Minstrels". She rolled one across the keys, and exclaimed "Look! a wandering Minstrel". I Naturally grabbed the said sweet, screwed it firmly into my ocular and exclaimed "Look! a wandering minstrel, eye!"



Page created 17 March 1999