Gilbertian

These Gilbertian lyrics are filled with cynical humour which can mock anything from Victoria to the Establishment and the Military.

Using songs taken entirely from the Gilbert and Sullivan canon, the show parodies the story of the world's longest running musical - with a few Gilbertian plot twists to make it "Less Miserable" and to ensure an implausibly contrived, happy ending.

It is a particularly outlandish example of Gilbertian satire and surrealism, affectionately mocking the culture, politics and social Event: Iolanthe Company: Huddersfield Gilbert and Sullivan Society Venue: Lawrence Batley Theatre By: William Marshall Rating: *** (out of five) divisions of his day with a Victorian fascination for fairydom and the pomposities and intellectual limitations of the hereditary Peerage being among his targets.

These works are clearly products of the Savoy machine, and Greenbank's situations and dialogue (but not lyrics) sound familiarly Gilbertian. In Captain Billy, for example, the foundling Christopher Jolly is in search of any documentation of his birth, as he has no idea how old he is.

As one of the astute letter writers observed last week, sodomisers often get custodial slaps on the cheeks, while forgers of employment enhancing documentation or sick leave certificates find themselves in a "pestilential prison with a life long lock" - albeit that I use Gilbertian licence here for literary reflect!

The outcome had been a "Gilbertian farce" in which the coastal defense force protecting Brunei was discovered to be a single kumpit and senior colonial officers had squirmed with embarrassment.