WHEN the no-changes-under-any-circumstances straitjacket was taken off the Gilbert & Sullivan Savoy Operas, the stage was set for a host of brilliant reworkings of these comic classics. Few of the reimaginings have been more successful than Sasha Regan’s all-male productions and next week Bath augiences can enjoy her delightful new take on perhaps the best-loved operetta of all, The Mikado.

Following Regan’s critically acclaimed all-male productions of HMS Pinafore, Iolanthe and The Pirates of Penzance, this latest boys-own staging will be at the Theatre Royal from Monday 10th to Saturday 15th July, direct from a London season at Wilton’s Music Hall.

Gilbert and Sullivan’s musical satire on the English establishment is married with Sasha Regan’s wicked sense of fun in a production which transposes the storyline to 1950s England and an all-boys school camping trip to the far away land of Titipu.

In this witty tale of love, corruption in local government, marriage and heroics, topsy-turvy capers abound when the son of the Mikado flees his father’s imperial court and falls for Miss Violet Plumb, who is betrothed to the Lord High Executioner.

Set to Sullivan’s glorious music, Gilbert’s humorous masterpieces include A Wand’ring Minstrel I, Behold the Lord High Executioner, Three Little Maids from School Are We and As Someday It May Happen (I’ve Got a Little List).

Regan’s idea to transform the G&S shows into all-male productions stems from her own experience performing Gilbert and Sullivan at a single-sex school.

Photograph by Mark Senior.