Welcome to the King’s College London Gilbert & Sullivan Society!
KCL G&S presents The Pirates of Penzance
Just three weeks to go until the curtain goes up on our Winter Production of The Pirates of Penzance. We are hard at work rehearsing so that you can enjoy a fabulous evening at the supremely talented hands of Gilbert and Sullivan!
It’s the perfect time of year for a swashbuckling production of The Pirates of Penzance! Join us from 4-6 March for a hilarious take on this beloved classic. Pirates, police and precocious daughters battle the twin obstacles of love and duty. Can you imagine a better way to spend those cold and treacherous March evenings than with this crew of hardy lads and lasses?
Performances:
4th March 7pm
5th March 7pm
6th March 7pm
Head on over to our ticket page for your chance to attend this fabulous event!
KCLG&S Winter Concert
Come and join KCLG&S on 30th November for a night of Gilbert & Sullivan classics as well as a sneak peak at our Winter Show, The Pirates of Penzance! All profits will go to Mind, the mental health charity.
The Concert will start at 7.30pm and take place in Guy’s Chapel, KCL Guy’s Campus, SE1 1UL. The first half will be songs from The Pirates of Penzance. After the interval, there will be a selection of numbers from across the G&S canon.
As well as ticket and bar sales contributing to our overall fundraising total, this year we will be holding a charity auction during our interval! Here is the list of exciting bids several generous benefactors and businesses have donated for this worthwhile cause:
Auction Bids
- Belgian Chocolate Pralines donated by Victoria Zicos
- A knitted trinket donated by Matter Matter
- A personalised cocktail and recipe donated by Rebekah Forty
- £20 voucher donated by Franco Manca
- £30 voucher donated by The Real Greek
- 2 tickets to Sasha Raegen’s All Male Pinafore donated by Wilton’s Music Hall (any weekday during the run)
- 2 tickets to Charles Court’s Iolanthe donated by Charles Court Opera & The King’s Head Theatre (for Tuesday 31st March 2020)
If for some unhappy reason you are unable to join us for our excellent contact you still have the opportunity to donate to this worthwhile cause. Simply email the society at kclgilbertandsullivan@gmail.com regarding the bid you are interested in and what amount you would like to pledge. We will include your pledge as a silent bid during the auction and contact you afterwards if your bid was successful and with information regarding payment details and collection. Please send your bids in by 7.30pm on 29th November 2019.
Come along to listen to some lovely singing, bid on some exciting prizes and sip some delicious mulled wine!
Tickets are £5 (£3 concessions) and are available here or on the door.
KCLG&S Ruddygore Photos
Here are the wonderful photos of our production in Harrogate taken by the fantastic Jon Lo Photography. They really capture the production! If you were there we hope they remind you of how fantastic our production was, if you weren’t… well make sure you are the first to book to see our production of Pirates of Penzance in March 2020!
The International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival 2018
We had a fantastic time in Harrogate this year. Most of us arrived on Sunday 11th just in time to catch The National G&S Opera Company production of The Pirates of Penzance. After that it was time for our get in and the exciting opportunity of turning a warehouse, resembling a WW2 aircraft hanger, into a sea-side village and ancestral castle. This involved creating a fly-bar from scratch in order to hang our frames! Once our set had been re-built, our costumes ironed and our voices warmed it was time for a well-deserved Indian take-away. The next day began with a dress rehearsal and our first chance to try out our new space. Once that was over it was already 2pm and the queue was stretching out the door. By curtain-up we were full to capacity and having to turn people away. The performance was a resounding success and the reviews we received afterwards were overwhelming positive. Then it was time to celebrate our success with a lot of wine and Italian food before our cabaret that evening. Once back in the Utopia Pavilion we delighted Harrogate with our renditions of ‘A Comedy Tonight’ (A funny thing happened on the way to Forum), a female duet of ‘Brush-up Your Shakespeare’ (Kiss Me Kate), an adapted version of ‘The Ballad of Sweeney Todd’ (Sweeney Todd) to reflect the events of The Sorcerer and many other fun tunes. Afterwards, we continued our after-show party at our accommodation.
A week later, we have heard the adjudication about our production in the Unifest Competition and we are over the moon with the recognition and praise we received:
Society Awards:
Nominated for best chorus: KCL Gilbert and Sullivan Society
Individual awards:
Nominated for best musical director: Mary Jayne Harding Scott
Nominated for best character actor, male: Jonathan Whiting
Nominated for best character actor, female: Megan Williams and Chloe Phillips-Bartlett
Thanks to everyone who was involved in the production and put in such hard work and dedication. We will now have a month’s hiatus before our welcome rehearsal on the 26th of September and our auditions for Pirates of Penzance in the first week of October, we hope to see many of you there!
Thank you to Jon Lo Photography for these fabulous photos!
Tickets Available for Summer Production of Ruddygore
Ghosts, love triangles, madness, and glorious tunes ahoy! Gilbert & Sullivan’s RUDDYGORE, OR THE WITCH’S CURSE tells the melodramatic tale of a noble lineage bound to commit a crime every day or perish in inconceivable agonies. When the heir to the line flees to a nearby village and falls in love with a virtuous maiden, he thinks he’s escaped the curse for good…but has he?
KCLG&S’s rollicking new production of RUDDYGORE stages the show as an impassioned, colourful melodrama of the kind that originally inspired G&S. Expect an array of musical and theatrical frolics, plus giddy bridesmaids, ancestral spectres, moral quandaries and a whole lot of heart. Let the ghostly revels begin!
Monday 12th August, International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival, Harrogate
London tickets cost £10 (£8 concessions) and can be bought online or on the door. Festival tickets are £15.
About the Society
We are the only student-based G&S society in London and we are dedicated to presenting the best that W.S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan have to offer!
Our 2018-19 season includes a fully-staged version of Princess Ida in mid February in the Greenwood Theatre – KCL’s very own Off-West-End theatre venue – as well as a concert in May to provide another opportunity to showcase our talented society with solo, small group and full company numbers. We will then be taking the ghostly Ruddigore to Harrogate, Yorkshire in August to participate in the International Gilbert & Sullivan Festival!
Although we hold auditions for lead roles, there is an open chorus as we believe that our shows are so much fun that everyone should have the opportunity to take part, even if you’ve never set foot on a stage before – this is your chance! If you are not interested in performing, but would still like to be involved, we also need an orchestra and stage crew, so please get in touch, we would love to have you!
KCL Gilbert and Sullivan Society is one of the best societies to be involved in. At the same time as working hard to produce a fantastic show, we also have an awesome time outside of rehearsals. We have regular socials including a weekend away, Christmas dinner, Summer ball, outings to shows and, of course, the weekly pub trip after every rehearsal!
We are already excited to see what we can achieve in the coming year, and we hope that you will join us and be a part of this incredible society! If you want to perform, or just want to make some new friends, then this is the society for you!
Princess Ida 2019
“Will Ida break the vows that she has plighted? – Yes.
Will she back out and say she did not mean them? – Of course.
If so, there’ll be the deuce to pay between them!” – There was!
Our February performance of Princess Ida is all now wrapped up, with smiles and favourable comments all around. We had a wonderful time performing and want to wish the cast, crew and everyone else involved a huge thank you for making it such a success!
The International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival 2018
We had a phenomenal time up in Harrogate at the International Gilbert & Sullivan Festival in August this year and our double bill of Trial By Jury and H.M.S. Pinafore charmed its way into winning 4 awards and receiving 2 more nominations!
Being crowned UniFest Champions for Trial By Jury was a wonderful achievement and congratulations go out to all involved. Chloe Phillips-Bartlett won the award for Best Director, Alex Carpenter won for Best Male Voice for his performance as Ralph Rackstraw and our costumes for H.M.S. Pinafore won in their category. We received nominations for for Best Chorus for Trial By Jury and Best Male Performer for Daniel Atherton’s portrayal of Captain Corcoran.
Thank you so much to everyone involved in making both the production and the festival such a huge success!!
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Find out more about our upcoming shows and how to join the fun here!
KCL Gilbert & Sullivan Society 