Eastbourne Gilbert and Sullivan Society will be performing “The Gondoliers” at Devonshire Park Theatre, Eastbourne from Wednesday 8th to 11th May 2019. Matinees: Wednesday and Saturday at 2:30pm and 7:45 Evenings.
As the alleged reputed oldest member of this Society, it will be my honour to strut about the stage once more at this lovely theatre, steeped in history and built by one of the best known designers of the day in 1884 by Henry Currey and in 1903 was developed and improved by the Theatre Architect Frank Matcham.
Michael Stringer
In love with films as a teenager, Michael Stringer created a model for himself of his local cinema on which he would update the poster displays. He later became an RAF pilot in the Second World War and went on to design the hit war film 633 Squadron (1964) and more than 50 other motion pictures before retiring to Sussex to become a painter specialising in local scenes. His last connection with show business came in 2001 when the Devonshire Park Theatre in Eastbourne placed his vivid depiction of local life on its safety curtain.
The story in brief of The Gondoliers:-
To be betrothed at the age of six months and married by proxy is happily not the fate of many people, even though the infant husband is the son and heir of a reigning monarch. Such, however, was the fate of Casilda, the beautiful daughter of the Duke of Plaza Toro, grandee of Spain.
The Duke and Duchess, accompanied by Casilda (now grown up) accompanied by Luiz their suite come to Venice to seek the royal husband, and it is only on arrival that the Duke tells Casilda of her earlier marriage. This does not please Casilda because she is secretly head over heels in love with Luiz, a fact happily at the time unknown to the Duke, but alas, it does not alter the fact that she is already married and that her romance with Luiz is at an end.
But the exigencies of comic opera do not permit matters to end here, for complications have arisen. It seems there is doubt as to the husband’s whereabouts, for one Don Alhambra had caused the infant husband to be stolen and brought to Venice, owing to the trouble in the royal household.
The unsuspecting infant had been placed in the care of a highly respected Gondolier, who had inadvertently mixed him up with his own son, both of whom had been brought up in the humble calling of Gondoliers.