Monday 26 March 2012

Tickets now available for PBGS 'Patience'!

 The original Duke, Colonel and Major

Patience tickets are now available from PBGS members (either by directly contacting those you know or by ringing 07946 264886) or from the Queen Mother Theatre Box Office: 01462 455166 from 12.30-1.30pm Mondays to Saturdays and 8.00-9.30pm Mondays to Thursdays. You an also buy them on-line from the Theatre. If you would like a booking form follow this link to a printable PDF: booking form.

Tickets for the show are already selling well so don't dally! Regular supporters will know that our productions are always sung to a very high standard with outstanding soloists and chorus (our Act 1 finale 'O list while we...' really raises the roof!). We are also presenting an extremely funny production which will be enjoyed by everyone. When Gilbert and Sullivan wrote Patience they were making fun of the Aesthetic movement of the 1870s and 1880s, led by Oscar Wilde. Although this is a traditional production (but with some little twists!) it is easy to see that fads, fashions, and 'going with the crowd' never changes and Gilbert pokes fun at the absurdity of it all.

Oscar Wilde really set the Aesthetic movement on fire when he 'arrived from Oxford clutching his sacred lily, enthusing about blue and white china and the paintings of the Pre-Raphaelites and describing Henry Irving's legs as "distinctly precious" ' (the Annotated Gilbert and Sullivan, Penguin, 1984). All of this will be familiar to Patience fans where Bunthorne, the 'Aesthetic Sham', pretends to be a poet because he wants to be popular and lure the ladies. He extols the fact that he is 'such a judge of blue-and-white and other kinds of pottery' and then descends to bathos by putting himself up in a raffle. His bubble of popularity bursts when another Aesthetic poet turns up who is even worse at poetry than he is.

Oscar Wilde

Oscar Wilde proved to be a good sport in all of this. It increased his fame and, when Patience opened in the United States, the ever resourceful D'Oyly Carte (never one to miss a trick) sent Wilde over there on a lecture tour to be 'a sandwich board for Patience'. He lectured in every city that Patience opened in wearing a suit of 'black velvet and knee breeches'. As the Annotated Gilbert and Sullivan points out, American audiences on seeing him and then Bunthorne must have wondered just exactly who was imitating who!

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Monday 12 March 2012

Latest Patience Rehearsal Schedule


We now have an updated Rehearsal Schedule which also has all the costume details that you need will for Patience. You'll find it on our Society Notices page.

As a taster, here are a few photos from our 1985 and 1991 PBGS Patience productions with some familiar faces to look out for. If anyone has any photos from our 2003 Production (even backstage) I would love to see them! Click on the images below for a better look:

1985





1991



Did you manage to spot Roy, Shirley, John E, founder June Pickard and Sue (me) with a dinner plate on my head?

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The Boy Friend in Ampthill


Jo B has sent a poster along for The Boy Friend which is being put on by the newly formed Ampthill Musical Theatre Society. From Jo:
This will be our first ever performance and it would be lovely to see as many people there as possible to encourage us onward and upward for more ventures... If you have as much fun watching as we have had rehearsing it, then you are in for a treat!!! Tickets are only £10 or £8 concessions and family tickets are £32 (2 adults and 2 concessions) but they are selling fast so get a move on if you want to come along.
The show is at Parkside Hall, Woburn Road, Ampthill 7.30pm on Saturday 14th April and Sunday 15th April 2012 and the box office number is 01525 405432.
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Saturday 3 March 2012

Family Guy does G&S again

Fans of the Family Guy cartoon will remember that the writers managed to put in a nod to Pirates last year with 'through the trees...'. Now here's a bit of silliness from The Sorcerer. found by Richard D. Enjoy!

The London Sillinannies

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