1. Introduction
[1.1] It all started with a chance conversation between two friends on a morning walk in the London suburb of Kingston upon Thames in 1924. To cite the earliest published account:
[1.2] They were both keen Gilbert and Sullivan men, and it struck them as remarkable that, despite the overwhelming popularity the operas enjoy, there was no common link amongst their following comparable to, for instance, the Shakespeare Society, the Burns Club and the Dickens Fellowship. The "worshippers" of the operas, if we may put it that way, were isolated units who met causally in pit queues or inside the theatres, but there were no means whereby their comradeship could be maintained and widened outside an actual public performance. Why not, then, forge such a link, and forge it without further delay? So the two pioneers came to town the following day, interested a few friends in the idea, and arranged an informal meeting to consider the formation of such a society. (A. Godwin 1925c)
[1.3] These were Roy Hopkins (1879–1959) and William Freeman (1880–1963), then in middle age, having enjoyed successful and varied careers in writing and publishing. The group that they gathered around themselves were similar middle-class professionals of roughly the same generation: civil servants, bankers, clergy, military officers, and upper management from a variety of trades. An initial organizational meeting was held on April 2, 1924, and the next morning, the Times reported: "The Gilbert and Sullivan Society was started at a large meeting in Essex Hall last night. Its chief aim is to maintain the tradition of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas, and to hold lectures and social gatherings." The community was definitely London-centric (and membership was divided into "town" and "country" members, with a differentiated dues structure), but within a few years, affiliated societies had sprung up in Edinburgh, Manchester, Oxford, New York, Sydney, and elsewhere. Despite the almost accidental origins of the society, the pioneers found that there was a mass of fans who lacked only an organizational framework to become a movement. The society and its affiliates continue to this day.
[1.4] The timing of the society's founding is significant, as it fits with a communal desire for reenchantment in the particularly disenchanted years after the Great War (Saler 2012). As with the contemporaneous fandom burgeoning around Sherlock Holmes, for example, what this new postwar generation brought to the celebration of Gilbert and Sullivan operas was qualitatively different than what had come before. While Sherlock Holmes fandom has been written about by those both within and outside the fandom community (Baring-Gould 1967; Rosenblatt and Pearson 2017), Gilbert and Sullivan fandom has been little studied, and what little there exists is almost entirely from within the Gilbert and Sullivan community. Ian Bradley's (2005) work on the enduring popularity of the operas is the most significant example of a fan-created text. A notable outsider perspective is expressed in a film documenting the Third International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival (Haggar 1998). Although it contains no editorial narration, the deadpan editing style implicitly characterizes its obsessive subjects as out of touch with reality.
[1.5] Here I attempt more sympathetic account, one based on a close reading of the society's Gilbert and Sullivan Journal during these early years. It reveals that the members viewed the operas as not mere enjoyment but as texts to be explored, imaginary worlds to be visited, and characters to be embodied. Most importantly, the Gilbert and Sullivan canon became the locus of a shared community. The vivid enthusiasm of its members emerged as various manifestations of fandom—early examples of phenomena associated with later twentieth-century fan movements. After a brief introduction to what the society was gathering around, I will review and categorize their many manifestations of fandom practices.
2. Gilbert, Sullivan, and the D'Oyly Carte family
[2.1] The Gilbert and Sullivan operas were already decades old by the time the society formed. Gilbert was William Schwenck Gilbert (1836–1911). Born in London, he lived in the metropolitan area all his adult life. He was trained as a lawyer, but he had more success as a humorist in verse, cartoons, and prose. When he started writing for the stage, it took about fifteen years for him to really hit his stride, which came writing librettos for comic opera. He was a virtuoso versifier. It seemed he could put anything into rhyme and meter, and he could—most of the time—make it sound perfectly natural.
[2.2] Sullivan was Arthur Seymour Sullivan (1842–1900), who was also born in London and who—aside from three years in his teens spent studying at the conservatory in Leipzig—also resided there his whole life. He enjoyed the friendship and favor of several members of the royal family. Sullivan was knighted in 1883 but Gilbert not until 1907. Sullivan's knighthood was a statement, a marker validating an "English musical renaissance" that was a Victorian priority (Hughes and Stradling 2009). He had been seen as the great hope of an English musical culture otherwise overrun by European imports, and there was tremendous pressure on him to produce great art. He wrote a fine (though very Germanic) symphony when he was twenty-four, a cello concerto that same year, and an impressive dramatic cantata entitled The Martyr of Antioch in 1880. But by the time of his knighthood, he was better known for his stage works, of which by far the most successful were his comic opera collaborations with Gilbert (table 1). The honor bestowed was surely a not-so-subtle prod to get him back to doing more serious work for the glory of English art, and some of his younger colleagues even said as much in the press.
| Title | Site (Date) |
|---|---|
| Thespis | Gaiety Theatre (December 26, 1871–March 8, 1872) |
| Trial by Jury | Royalty Theatre (March 25–December 18, 1875); transferred to Opera Comique (January 13–May 5, 1876) |
| The Sorcerer | Opera Comique (November 17, 1877–May 24, 1787) |
| HMS Pinafore | Opera Comique (May 25, 1878–February 20, 1880) |
| The Pirates of Penzance | Fifth Avenue Theater, New York (December 31, 1879–June 5, 1880); first London production, Opera Comique (April 3, 1880–April 2, 1881) |
| Patience | Opera Comique (April 23–October 8, 1881); transferred to Savoy Theatre (October 10, 1881–November 22, 1882) |
| Iolanthe | Savoy Theatre (November 25, 1882–January 1, 1884) |
| Princess Ida | Savoy Theatre (January 5, 1884–October 9, 1884) |
| The Mikado | Savoy Theatre (March 15, 1885–January 19, 1887) |
| Ruddigore | Savoy Theatre (January 22–November 5, 1887) |
| The Yeomen of the Guard | Savoy Theatre (October 3, 1888–November 30, 1889) |
| The Gondoliers | Savoy Theatre (December 7, 1889–June 20, 1891) |
| Utopia Limited | Savoy Theatre (October 7, 1893–June 9, 1894) |
| The Grand Duke | Savoy Theatre (March 7–July 10, 1896) |
[2.3] All but the first of their fourteen comic operas were produced under contract with impresario and visionary Richard D'Oyly Carte (1844–1901), who recognized that he was backing a winner. The impact of Gilbert and Carte on subsequent generations of musical theater would be hard to overstate. There are two particularly significant examples. First, Gilbert's unprecedented tyranny over his actors meant that he virtually created the profession of a stage director as we recognize it today. Second, Carte intentionally promoted shows that could run for months and years (as we now would expect in the West End or on Broadway) rather than for weeks while simultaneously mounting touring companies. They brought in huge audiences, and the team made a tremendous amount of money; moreover, they became—as Gilbert wrote to Sullivan in February 1888—"world-known, & as much an institution as Westminster Abbey" (Ainger 2002, 272).
[2.4] It was not an easy collaboration. There were some rocky disagreements; they almost broke completely in 1884 and again in 1891. Sullivan's death in 1900 meant there could be no new Gilbert and Sullivan shows, but the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company continued performing the old ones, and it existed for more than a century doing almost exclusively Gilbert and Sullivan works. After Carte's death, the company stayed in the family, managed by his second wife, then his son, and eventually his granddaughter. From 1903 on, the company abandoned its permanent London home, the Savoy Theatre, which Carte had built in 1881, adding on to it the luxury Savoy Hotel in 1889. Instead, the company essentially morphed into strolling players—a touring troupe performing a large repertory of the Gilbert and Sullivan shows. The company toured Britain for a ten- or eleven-month season, performing at each venue for at least a week, generally a different opera every night. Local enthusiasts would eagerly anticipate the D'Oyly Carte residency; it seems not to have been uncommon for an individual audience member to attend five or more performances in a week. The D'Oyly Carte Opera Company exercised its exclusive rights to the professional production of the pieces in the British Empire until the expiry of Gilbert's copyright at the end of 1961, so it faced no real domestic competition. The Gilbert and Sullivan enthusiast's experience and expectations were necessarily shaped around what the company presented, and a considerable loyalty grew around the company and its traditions.
3. The society: A product of its time
[3.1] A number of factors coalescing in Britain just after World War I were surely instrumental in bringing about an environment that made the formation of a fan club seem inevitable. The generation young enough to be unable to remember a time before the Gilbert and Sullivan operas was nearing middle age, so nostalgia (a common topic in fandom studies) played a role. Garlen (2014), for example, gives an account of the dark age between the LEGO play of childhood and a return to the toys in adulthood. The founders of the Gilbert and Sullivan Society, however, had no dark age but rather were lifelong enthusiasts. Their experience was perhaps more poignant because the havoc of the Great War had violently expunged so much of the culture they had been born into. Some of the generation reassessed that past era and were glad to be rid of it. Lytton Strachey's Eminent Victorians (1918) and Robert Graves's Goodbye to All That (1929) are notable examples, decrying the systemic hypocrisy, sentimentalism, and jingoism of the Victorian era. Others longed for the confidence and security of that lost golden age of their childhood. Just as there would emerge a newly energetic community gathering around the canon of Sherlock Holmes stories in the 1930s, slightly before that had gathered a similar community energized by the D'Oyly Carte productions.
[3.2] In the years surrounding World War I, London-area Gilbert and Sullivan enthusiasts could legitimately feel that their passion was decidedly out of fashion, which instead was spotlighting musical comedies and revues in West End theaters. Yet all the while, the D'Oyly Carte company performed in provincial theaters and Britain—and was doing very well for itself. Just after the war, Rupert D'Oyly Carte decided to bring his touring company back to central London for an eighteen-week season at the Prince's Theatre in 1919–20 to compete head-to-head with popular West End shows. This gambit was so fabulously successful that he programmed twenty-seven weeks there in 1921–22, then similar London seasons every few years thereafter, even during World War II (Rollins and Witts 1962). Those first two London residencies were a substantial shot in the arm for the Gilbert and Sullivan–faithful audience around London, which was still too dispersed and unorganized to be called a fan base. However, whereas the original productions of the Savoy operas had been aimed at the widest possible audience (upper class in the dress circle, middle class in the stalls, and working class in the gallery), by the 1920s, the most fervent audience for Gilbert and Sullivan was narrowing to the middle class (Oost 2009). The success of these performances—and the community gathering around them that was visible in the long queues outside the theater—was the impetus for that Sunday-morning conversation that set everything in motion. It should be noted that the society had the blessing of Rupert D'Oyly Carte but no official connection with the opera company.
4. Performative fandom
[4.1] In February 1925—not quite a year after the initial organizational meeting—the first issue of the society's publication appeared. It soon settled into a quarterly schedule (note 1). What the Gilbert and Sullivan Journal documents is that the society was fostering a broad array of fan activities, typical of much later fan organizations, and—significantly—far exceeding the "discourses of fandom" that had preceded it (Cavicchi 2018). Indeed, it is curious that the earlier Gilbert and Sullivan enthusiasm in the late nineteenth century seems to have been immune to the symptoms that Cavicchi (2014) identifies as endemic to other music fandoms of that era.
[4.2] Performative fandom was much in evidence in the early days of the society. While members did not cosplay per se, the society's costume ball held on February 20, 1925, enabled the members to impersonate characters from the operas. Many in the society were already involved in amateur operatic productions and thus would have had opportunities to play Gilbert and Sullivan roles on the stage. The costume ball, however, afforded them a different manifestation of costume fandom: the chance to be these characters in a new setting, without a script—and not limited to a character matching their voice range. Of course, masquerade balls go back centuries, well before the Gilbert and Sullivan Society, but the particular focus that the society brought to theirs enabled costume fandom as an outlet for indulging a fantasy in a new way and within a community, resonating with later manifestations of costume fandom (V. Godwin 2024). Costumes for Gilbert and Sullivan amateur productions were readily available for hire (and were regularly advertised in the Journal). For the ball, however, prizes would be awarded only to homemade costumes in four categories: "Best representation of a Lady's Character," "Prettiest Lady's Costume," "Best representation of a Gentleman's Character," and "Most Effective Gentleman's Costume" ("Grand Costume Ball" 1925).
[4.3] By "representation," the society meant precisely that: an exacting reproduction of what the D'Oyly Carte company was using on stage. An account of the event in the subsequent issue reports: "No fewer than 356 dancers were there, most of them dressed as familiar operatic characters, and a remarkable feature in so large a company was the rarity of duplications. Staged in so ornate a hall, the scene was one of remarkable animation and colour as noble lords and ladies, pirates and dairymaids, geishas and contadini, and a host of other familiar and easily-identified figures moved about the floor, keeping up their joyous revels until the early hours of the morning" ("Fleeting Backward Glimpses" 1925).
[4.4] The society hosted another ball within the year, with the conditions only slightly relaxed: "The costumes may be elaborate or simple, picturesque or ingenious, just as the wearer prefers. The sole condition is that they must be those of easily-identified parts in the operas" ("Let's All Come to the Ball!" 1925). The prize categories were also a little more liberal, awarding a prize for a woman and a man in each of three categories: "Best representation of any G. & S. character (irrespective of how and where the dress is made)," "Most pleasing original idea of how any G. & S. character might be dressed," and "Best home-made costume made from Messrs. Weldon's designs or patterns" ("Let's All Come to the Ball!" 1925).
[4.5] This mix of trying to match a professional standard (in this instance even using professional patterns) and allowing considerably more creativity and personal expression into conceiving how a character might be dressed prefigures the sort of mix later typical of Comic-Con and science fiction conventions (V. Godwin 2024). There is no record in the Journal of the extent to which the participants were also enacting the character whose costume they were wearing—that is, adopting their manner of speech or even quoting some of their lines, but just as likely going imaginatively off-script in the manner described by Nicolle Lamerichs (2011). In any case, there were opportunities for that sort of performativity in the society's occasional mock trials, which imagined legal cases between characters ("Society Happenings" 1934). It seems unlikely that there were any cross-dressers among the Gilbert and Sullivan revelers; if so, none is recorded among the prizewinners. It should be noted, however, that Gilbert and Sullivan performances in the schools were regularly single-sex productions, so the society's members may well have participated in such activities as schoolchildren (Bradley 2005).
[4.6] The winter-season costume balls gradually morphed into a costume-optional annual dance, but prizes were still awarded for costumes in the early 1930s. These broadened in scope to include "the most ingenious representations of people and things mentioned" in the operas ("Society Happenings" 1930). Some took on this challenge with gusto, and reports of the occasion mention winners dressed as a "not too French French bean" from Patience and "a greengrocer tree and a pastry-cook plant" from Iolanthe ("Society Happenings" 1931).
5. Missionary zeal and textual poaching
[5.1] In the 1930s, the annual dance as the main social event was gradually supplanted in importance by a Christmas party. Fearing that enthusiasm for Gilbert and Sullivan was only one generation away from extinction, in 1933 the announcement of the Christmas party included the notice, "Children over ten years of age will be welcomed as special guests" ("Society Happenings" 1933). In 1934 the society even added a new "Junior" category of membership for persons under the age of eighteen, and starting in September of that year, the Journal included a regular feature "For the Younger Members," written under the alias "Second Trombone" ("Chance for Young Folk" 1934). This column included quizzes on the operas, correspondence from junior members, and explanations of references in Gilbert's librettos that might go over children's heads.
[5.2] Contributions to the Journal reveal a passionate, wonkish concern for the details in performances of the works—a concern for realism shared by Gilbert as he staged the first productions. Nevertheless, it seems startling to find the following letter as a response to a piece in the "For the Younger Members" column:
[5.3] DEAR MR. EDITOR.—Reading "Second Trombone's" list of the flags that appear in the operas, I was reminded of the number of times the Union Jack appears the wrong way up, both in Ruddigore and The Pirates of Penzance—and this error has not always been confined to amateurs. As most people know, the diagonal red (St. Patrick) saltire is not placed symmetrically upon the white (St. Andrew) cross; there being a broader white stripe on one side of the red than on the other. This broader stripe is uppermost on the side of the flag next the staff. Incidentally, the name Union Jack is really a misnomer, and should strictly be used only when the Union flag is flown from the "jack staff" of a man-o'-war. Once, at least, I saw the Union Jack flying over the White Tower on the backcloth of The Yeomen of the Guard [set in the sixteenth century]. This was a strange anachronism, as the flag, in its present form, dates from 1801. —HERALD ("Readers in Council" 1937)
[5.4] An obsession with such details is characteristic of many contributions to the Journal, some of which resemble fannish Sherlock Holmes scholarship, with its attempts to iron out inconsistencies in Conan Doyle's stories (and which has contemporaneous origins). This focus on details includes an article in the Journal puzzling over the degree of sunshine that should be visible in productions of The Yeomen of the Guard (Glenthorne 1938), and there is considerable ink spilled in trying to determine the leap-day birth year of the hero of The Pirates of Penzance (D. Davis 1940a, 1944; Clayton 1940; "Birthday Problem" 1940; "Readers in Council" 1940). Does he turn twenty-one in 1940, as the libretto says, or was Gilbert failing to account for the lack of a leap year in 1900?
[5.5] There are also some forays into what we would now recognize as fan fiction—creative explorations in what may have happened to the characters before or after the curtain. Members are repeatedly drawn to the relationship of "the merryman and his maid," Jack Point and Elsie Maynard in The Yeomen of the Guard. Some of this imaginative conversation is related to a "parliamentary debate" about these characters, which appears on the program for the December 1925 meeting. However, substantial discussions appear throughout the pages of the first few issues of the Journal, with reactions regularly emerging in letters to the editor (A. Godwin 1925a, 1925b, 1926b; Dawson 1926; R. Davis 1926, 1927).
[5.6] In a curious anticipation of fantasy football, there is an article imagining a perfect "Cricket eleven" drawn from the men in the operas: "As a devotee of cricket, one of my hobbies, common to all such enthusiasts, is making up cricket teams, and many happy hours are spent in picking sides to represent England v. Australia, or a World eleven versus an imaginary team from Mars. I always feel that the characters from the operas, who are so intensely British, would, in their spare time, play our national game. I have therefore made out what I consider the best eleven which 'G. & S.' can put in the field" (Lunn 1933). But that article also fits in with several others that seek to justify their views on the superlatives of the works. There are arguments for the six best lyrics, the six best airs (melodies), the six best quotations, and the six favorite characters (as well as the six best books concerning Gilbert and Sullivan), engendering at times lively responses from the readership. Nor is it all unstinting praise for the works, as there is a willingness to point out weaknesses, plot inconsistencies, and other show goofs (Third Trombone (alias) 1928). These might be read as efforts in one-upmanship to show how conversant the writer is with the whole repertory.
[5.7] Certainly the articles appearing in the Journal take fluency with the operas' texts for granted. Although there are efforts to facilitate a greater appreciation of the works (including a series of glossary articles that serve as explanatory annotations to obscure references in the librettos), the general assumption is that readers know all the operas well. Articles are replete with quotations and paraphrases of Gilbert's lines. There are acrostics, general knowledge tests (posers), and hypothetical examination questions that require expert command over the whole repertory. There are occasional prize competitions for essays responding to questions like, "If you were cast away on a desert island, which character from the operas would you most like to find there as a companion?" ("Your Desert Island Friend" 1928a, 1928b). Social evenings often featured tune- or quotation-identification games. All of this insidership might seem exclusive or unwelcoming, but elsewhere, a recurring theme of the Journal is the receptive nature of the community. Members are encouraged to be "missionaries" to promote Gilbert and Sullivan enthusiasm (A. Godwin 1928a). The society held a lending library of books and records for its members. When—as happens more than once—there is correspondence about individual members attending meetings but feeling lonely because they don't know anyone, there is a recurring reply that such members need only introduce themselves to any of the badge-wearing officers of the society, and introductions to regulars will cheerfully be made—a strategy to integrate new members ("Lonely Member" 1929), demonstrating that an essential aspect of being a fan is being part of a community (Jenkins 2013).
6. Keepers of the flame
[6.1] But a community gathering around what, exactly? The society was independent of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company and its management, but the doings of the company were always at the forefront of the society's interest, with notices in every issue of the touring schedule. The editor states, "The society is concerned with Gilbert and Sullivan Opera as a whole, and not with contemporary personalities engaged in its presentation. Yet, try as one may, the two things—the operas and the company—cannot be separated" (D. Davis 1935). Indeed, many contributions to the Journal, whether articles or letters, are commentary on or reflections prompted by visits to D'Oyly Carte performances. The tone is often hagiographic.
[6.2] That said, there could be a certain amount of intolerance of any departure from tradition as the society understood it. Whenever D'Oyly Carte updated costumes or scenery in a production, there was bound to be unfavorable comment in the Journal. When, during the war, the scenery of The Yeomen of the Guard switched from its traditional approach, an attempt at a realistic representation of the Tower of London, to a much simpler, plainer facade of a generic space within the battlements, there was some disappointment, with one society member noting, "The unadorned arches, which have replaced the stone-and-mortar, tend in their plain severeness to justify press comment on 'concrete tunnels.' A suggestion of a more venerable building would relieve the bare flatness of these walls" (D. Davis 1940b). Any change was guaranteed to provoke comment, regardless of how much the delivery of lines, the business of the characters, and the production's choreography remained untouched. As a later company insider was to observe, "There was no such thing as a new production [by the D'Oyly Carte], just new costumes and new scenery, with no attempt at imaginative rethinking" (Seeley 2022, 52). When Sir Malcolm Sargent took the podium as conductor of the 1926 London season, there were complaints about his quick tempi: "Now, I may be a stick-in-the-mud in thinking that a sentimental song should be sentimentally sung, but there was one idea that struck me about this Sargentine 'ginger.'…Gilbert and Sullivan, one of the restful things in a restless generation,…was being made more 'snappy.' It was being liven[ed] up a little nearer, just a little nearer, to musical comedy…I think we should prefer not to have it again" (A. Godwin 1927).
[6.3] Commentators relished ridiculing the solecisms of American productions or reporting overheard naïve remarks by novice operagoers. Stylistic reworkings like The Hot Mikado and The Swing Mikado are explicitly dismissed as beyond the scope of the society's interest: "As serious contributions to the art of Gilbert and Sullivan Opera, these recent negro presentations of The Mikado, which have been achieving a fair measure of success in New York, might be passed over in solemn silence. For it is by no means unreasonable to claim that they do not fall into any category of that art as we know it. Even though these productions come within our idea of things that are 'not done,' there is certain general interest in them that justifies comment" (D. Davis 1939b).
[6.4] There is obviously a racist component to this reaction, but the objection ostensibly concerns updating the music into popular styles, thus transforming the whole production into mere entertainment. The term art here is significant. Although others might think of Gilbert and Sullivan as entertainment, within the society, it is art, and the performance experience is regarded as commanding special respect (Scott 2008). Readers thus complain about audience members talking through the overtures or clapping before a song is finished (Williams 1937). They hold parliamentary debates, including one that argues for and against encores, even mustering evidence from the original productions in support ("Vindication" 1930). However, the real indignation was reserved for domestic amateur companies that performed the shows and took liberties with now-sacred rituals:
[6.5] We find a growing tendency for the operas to be produced on able, though "independent" lines which, though it may be good for the individuality of the producer and performers, simply does not do and, incidentally, is quite against the conditions [imposed by the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company] on which [of] the operas are allowed to be given by amateurs. By all means get the best producer, amateur or professional, that you can, but make sure that he or she is sufficiently schooled in the operas to put them on properly. Failing this, it should surely prove a matter of comparative ease to help the producer in matters arising from traditional usage and "business." Members of this society should be able to assist in this way and it is suggested that if anyone knows of an impending local production and has any misgivings on the way in which it will be presented, he or she should get in touch with the officials and offer this assistance. One might even go further and suggest—though no originality is claimed for this suggestion—that if a production is seen which glaringly violates the conditions of the acting rights, the matter might well be reported to this society, which, in accordance with its objects, might see fit to take the matter further. (A. Godwin 1928b)
[6.6] Advertisements appear regularly in the Journal from former members of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company who sought opportunities to teach, direct, or consult for those involved in amateur productions—and thus to pass on the sacred tradition. Members generally took for granted that the performances should always accord with what Gilbert established, so the prevailing ethos was one of "affirmational fandom" (obsession_inc 2009), with the canonical object confirmed rather than transformed.
[6.7] The Journal, a product of a band of reactionary guardians gathering around an altar, has an air of self-importance. The same names recur in the Journal, so it is difficult to assess the attitudes of the membership as a whole. It seems that those who bother to be incensed about anything belong to a fairly small circle. By 1944, we are told that two thirds of the membership are women (Johnson 1944), yet most Journal contributions seem to be by men. Even before the outbreak of World War II, at least half of the London society's officers were women. The composition of the society was admittedly no cross section of Britain but rather a narrow sliver of the middle class—those with at least a little disposable income. (The best window into the society's membership is the Journal's recurring column "Familiar Faces," which provides a picture and biographical blurb of featured members.) The membership is hardly monolithic, but when anyone steps out of line, there is mild flaming. One of the most interesting contributors of those early years is Gervase Lambton (1912–37). His first article, "Ugliness and Common Sense," appeared when he was just eighteen years old, and he became a regular contributor thereafter until his untimely death, when he drowned in the Red Sea while on his way to Kenya at age twenty-five. But before age twenty, he was causing trouble in the society, with articles entitled "Candid Thoughts About Tradition" (1931a), "This Question of Modernism" (1932b), "Virgin Blushes of Victorianism" (1932c), "A Modern Outlook on the Operas" (1932a), and the like. His book Gilbertian Characters (1931b) really ruffled feathers, drawing a response from the old guard: "The Author, who is not yet out of his teens, tells us that one of the scenes in The Yeomen of the Guard 'is always played on entirely wrong lines by the D'Oyly Carte Company,' and adds, 'the scene should be played like this…' Ye Gods! Mr. Lambton, [quoting a line from Ruddigore] 'I'd give my right arm for one-tenth of your modest assurance'" (R. Davis 1931; see also "Readers in Council" 1932).
7. Change with the times?
[7.1] In common with other fan movements, there can be a fundamentalist approach to the received tradition of the canon (Hagen 2014). There is a distinction to be made between the fourteen Gilbert and Sullivan operas on the one hand and long-running series (whether the Sherlock Holmes stories or TV science fiction franchises like Star Trek) on the other. The serials present the same groups of characters in a variety of situations, and over time, the audience gets to know the many sometimes contradictory facets of those characters. The operas, however, present fourteen different sets of characters, each tied to a single story, although it has been argued that more or less the same story and characters appear every time (Weisinger 1964). There are certainly similarities between many of the operas, but the relationship of the audience to the characters is necessarily different than that of several seasons of a televisions series or several dozen short stories. Those devoted readers who mourned the death of Sherlock Holmes in 1891 are a different phenomenon from the quasi-academic Baker Street Irregulars of the 1930s and their affiliated groups. That said, the advent of the Baker Street Irregulars and the Gilbert and Sullivan Society in the 1920s and 1930s suggests that something newly enlivened this generation to cling to beloved past texts, despite monumental changes in the years after the Great War. At this time, these works were transforming from shows or stories to be enjoyed to texts to be drilled—that is, to dive deep in the layers of meaning, allusion, and contextual references (Ford 2014; Jenkins 2013). This drilling was done communally, shared through the pages of the Journal, which sometimes morphed into monographs for wider distribution (Lambton 1931b; A. Godwin 1926a; Williamson 1955).
[7.2] Rather like reruns of syndicated shows or preserving episodes for repeated viewing, the comparatively stable production style of the professional D'Oyly Carte productions (and the heavy-handed stipulations put on amateur companies wanting to produce the works) meant that—perhaps more than any other example of performance art of its time—the fans had the opportunity to rewatch more or less the same production repeatedly over years, even decades. At the same time, virtually the whole of the Gilbert and Sullivan canon was becoming available in recordings issued by the HMV label (and advertised regularly in the Journal). With repeated rewatching comes intense familiarity with details. Little wonder that the contributions to the Journal (particularly the letters to the editor) are full of inside references! Even the most obscure quotations lack attribution; indeed, identifying the quotations would call into question the fluency of the reader—or is it just showing off? Readers know there's a quote in there somewhere, but they can't quite place it—a reminder that the author knows the canon even better.
[7.3] There grew a curiosity bordering on reverence regarding the lives the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company's stars—not only those seen on stage at the time but also the declining generation who had performed in the original productions. The society's meetings often included socializing with these Savoyards. On one celebrated occasion some forty-five years after the first production of The Mikado, they reunited Leonora Braham, Sibyl Grey, and Jessie Bond ("Original Three Little Maids" 1930). Such fan meet-and-greets are more similar to a Supernatural convention than to the more restricted interactions between stars and fans at other such events (Zubernis and Larson 2018). The Journal, too, includes memoirs of Savoyards, occasional pleas for donations to support them in their impoverished old age, and obituary tributes. Because the D'Oyly Carte artists sometimes remained in the company for decades, they became particularly associated with the roles they played, and whenever a new person took over a role, there was bound to be a variety of opinions expressed, rather like the James Bond or Doctor Who franchises today. Even so, society members took any slight to their heroes very seriously. The most extreme instance is the 1939 film of The Mikado, which was officially a D'Oyly Carte project but was rethought cinematically. This entailed taking some real liberties with the text, including introducing a prologue. The stage company members who appeared on film were universally praised in the Journal, but highly controversial was the allocation of the romantic tenor lead, Nanki-Poo, not just to someone outside the company but to an American crooner, Kenny Baker ("Readers in Council" 1939; D. Davis 1939a). The members' commentary on the film is a perennial topic in the 1939 Journal issues. The society had strong views about whether film adaptations should be made, and how. In any case, the war prevented any other similar projects.
8. Conclusion
[8.1] The Gilbert and Sullivan Journal serves as a particularly well-documented account of fandom before the youth-culture fan phenomena that would flourish especially during and after World War II (Hollenbach 2024). Despite the many differences between the Gilbert and Sullivan fandom and subsequent fan movements, many of the practices of more recent fandom are manifest already in those interwar years: costume fandom, fan fiction, drilling texts, quizzes and competitions for the members, critical and adoring reviews of new productions, star meet-and-greets—and all shared in an ever-broadening community of enthusiasts seeking reenchantment. In the early years of the Journal, there are several considerations of who might be a modern-day successor to Gilbert and/or Sullivan, but all of that soon trails off. It seems that the members are not interested in a successor; they only want the real thing. There was briefly a market for parodies of the shows, some of which were written with the idea that an amateur operatic company could easily add them to their repertoire because their audiences would get the jokes. (This is equivalent to the parody film Galaxy Quest among the Star Trek fan base.) As the society braved the war years, though, "carry on" meant persisting in the old traditions as the members understood them.
[8.2] With the continued financial austerity of the postwar years, the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company was forced to further economize their productions, especially after they had to invest in new scenery and costumes for many of the shows after one of their warehouses was destroyed in the Blitz. The society's idealized vision of the operas became more disconnected from what was practical on stage, and to an extent the Journal in those later years necessarily presents a Neverland as that first generation of the society would like to have remembered it. From 1925 to 1945, however, the documents present a much more complicated picture of a fan phenomenon coming of age.
9. Acknowledgments
[9.1] Preliminary versions of this research were presented to the Social Research Colloquium at the University of Mary Washington on October 23, 2024; and to the Department of Music, Drama, and Performance at Bangor University (Wales) on April 9, 2025. I am indebted to the detailed responses of Marc Shepherd.