Arthur Sullivan was one of those kids that made everyone hate themselves because while
his friends were learning how to carry the one, he composed an anthem about weeping for
Jerusalem on the shores of Babylon and he could play all of the instruments himself.
He got a Mendelssohn scholarship at 14 and by the time he graduated high school he was
playing the equivalent of Madison Square Garden. Now he’s writing for the Queen, he’s adapting
Shakespeare and Tennyson, Britain kinda missed the boat for Romantic music, but now they’ve
got less-racist Wagner on the rise and they want the world to know. Only problem was he
was broke.
[intro]
Aaaaaarthurrrrrr H-gaghg! What’s happening? I can’t move!
Aaaaarthurrrr! I am the ghost of media future, Arthurrrrr!
O-oh No, you should still be scared, Arthur Sullivan!
Because in a hundred and fifty years, some of your work is going to be ~ p r o b l e
m a t i c ~ Huh?
You wrote an opera where white actors put on makeup to make themselves look vaguely
Asian and call themselves names like Nanki-Poo and Yum-Yum
B-but! I know, it’s the 1880s, you’re thinking
how am I supposed to learn anything about foreign cultures?
No, I- It’s not too late, Aaaarthurrrr~! I bring
with me, Babbel! Babbel’s 10-minute interactive language-learning lessons will have you speaking
in just 3 weeks! But-!
But nothing! Babbel has many ways to learn, you can engage with lessons, podcasts, games,
and live classes with top teachers! But Gilbert does all the words, I only write
the music! Silence! He’s got a different voice actor,
no one needs to know we record the ad spot separately. Now go! Go, to the link in the
description or the QR code on screen to get 65% off! Do better, Arthurrrrr! Hacer mejorrrrrrrr
So Sullivan does what any respectable artist would and sells out, doing a couple comic
operas here and there, and one day this producer approaches him and says “Hey, there’s
this guy I want you to meet” and brings him to see Gilbert, a big-wig writer/director
who’s genuinely very kind, just not very polite. The kind of guy that’ll pay for
your cab just to insult you in person. The two of them cobble together a play in a couple
weeks, it’s half-improvised and two of the men are women but it pays the bills! Sullivan
goes back to Shakespeare, Gilbert starts his next show, but the composer bails when his
wife dies and Gilbert’s up a creek without a paddle. Whatever will he do?
So the two team up for good and even though their shows are short, their competition was
second-rate bootlegs and parodies of operas from the continent so by comparison these
guys were geniuses! Obviously Sullivan was on a whole other level, but Gilbert would
come up with some dumb idea like everyone in town getting hit with the same love potion
and just run with it until he copped out at the end like 1800s Monty Python, and his lyrics
were simultaneously eloquent and clever and quotable while being just… so stupid.
General Stanley... He is... no... He is no... orphan! And more than that..! He never was
one!
But hey, it works, so they wash-rinse-repeat on a full-length opera… and immediately
create one of the most defining and enduring pieces of musical theatre of all time that
would go on to influence generations of comedians. Pirates of Penzance is my go-to feel-good
movie, the kind I catch myself absent-mindedly humming along to so I put on the movie on
a Sunday night even though I’ve seen it so many times I can practically recite it
from memory. You probably know the modern major general song because it’s that popular,
and trust me, the rest of the show is equally iconic. And after Pirates, Gilbert and Sullivan’s
producer gets them their own theater and it’s just hit after hit after hit! And now Gilbert
goes hard.
I said blue bonnets, not blue bonnets! Hats man, hats!
It’s only funny when you stop having fun! I don’t cast stars… I make stars
Sullivan: Gilbert, a moment?
Sullivan: I wanted to ask you… do you have any strong feelings about what our next show
shall be? Gilbert: None
Sullivan: None? Gilbert: For the two of us there are opportunities
more plenteous than the stars! Sullivan: Why that’s very well indeed! You
see I had been meaning to say something. Your plays are, well, they are without compare,
but you and I, we come from, if I may say so… different backgrounds, would you agree?
Gilbert: Certainly, certainly Sullivan: And so I wanted to ask if our next
project might reflect that. If we could write something more… classical. Something about
honour, and and heroism, and - and chivalry! Gilbert (laughing): Yes, and duty and high
society! (rising music) My dear Sullivan I think we’re more alike than you realize,
you see there are thousands of shows we could make about all that faff!
~Weeeeeeeeee~
Gilbert: could sing about a noble boy entrained to
be a pilot \ Accident’ly bound by duty to kind-hearted orphan pirates
Take a shot at poncy poets or lampoon a generation \ of conceited army fellas and their blind
self-adoration Or a battle of the sexes pitting fairies gainst
the nobles \ satirising peers and commons and our modern British troubles?
When it comes to high society and high-falutin chatter \ there’s material for centuries
it really doesn’t matter
Sullivan: So it really doesn’t matter matter matter matter matter?
Gilbert: No it really doesn’t matter (matter matter matter matter)
Sullivan: So it really doesn’t matter matter matter matter matter…!
Gilbert: No it really doesn’t matter matter matter matter matter
Sullivan: So it really doesn’t matter? Gilbert: No it really doesn’t matter,
Both: So/No it really doesn’t matter (matter matter matter matter)! (Matter… x14)
Sullivan: Supposing that we wrote about a knight in shining armor / Who rode out to
save a princess and deliver her from harm- Gilbert: Her keen desire to be even with this
kind and daring stranger / leads her to arrange to rescue him from even graver danger /
That’s why when she goes to pull him from an all-emblazing fire / She discovers it’s
sure bigger than anticipated prior! But he’s magical or something -
Sullivan: This was sounding kind of sadder -
Gilbert: But the ending is whatever cause it really doesn’t matter!
Sullivan: Are you sure it doesn’t matter matter matter matter matter
Gilbert: Rest assured it doesn’t matter matter matter matter matter
Sullivan: Are you sure it doesn’t matter matter matter matter matter
Gilbert: Rest assured it doesn’t matter matter matter matter matter
Sullivan: Are you sure it doesn’t matter? Gilbert: Yes I’m sure it doesn’t matter,
Both: (Are you sure/rest assured) it doesn’t matter matter matter matter matter!
Sullivan: But what about an op’ra full of majesty and glory / something more than simple
patter songs and dime-a-dozen stories why not
Something that will tantalize and something that will challenge / Something bigger something
bolder that’ll utilize our talents Can we sit here in complacency if there’s
a higher calling / we could hammer out our masterpiece and leave the people balling
Gilbert: The greater one purports to be I see them fall down flatter / So let’s sing
this song from Ruddigore it really doesn’t matter!
Gilbert: No it really doesn’t matter matter matter matter matter
Sullivan: No it really doesn’t matter matter matter matter matter
Gilbert: Yes it really doesn’t matter matter matter matter matter
Sullivan: Yes it really doesn’t matter matter matter matter matter
Gilbert: Yes it really doesn’t matter, Yes it really doesn’t matter
Sullivan: Guess it really doesn’t matter matter matter matter matter!
Gilbert: Yes it really doesn’t matter, Yes it really doesn’t matter
G/S: Yes/Guess it really doesn’t matter matter matter (etc)
Ergo Sullivan, on top of composing for the biggest sensation in London, is also doing
a bunch of work on the side. Composing here and there, directing a music festival, oh
yeah getting knighted by the queen. And to be honest pirates singing about leap year
was fun but it ain’t Schubert. So with his pockets lined he set out to do something bigger,
or at least he would have if his broker didn’t burn through his life savings. So he turns
back to Gilbert who tells him
Now, times may be tough, but I’ve got the story that’ll put our names in the history
books. So it’s about this magic lozenge. And it transforms people! Into -
No! Gilbert… I have needs! Can’t we do one show that doesn’t end with everyone
making amends on account of some absurd overlooked technicality?
And so they do. And it does pretty well! Then with newfound confidence and Gilbert more
receptible, Sullivan pitches their biggest project yet,
Ivanhoe! A grand opera, something big, something important! Something to rival Wagner
The trouble is though, Gilbert made his whole career making fun of royalty, making fun of
nobility, and dignity, and class, and heroism, basically everything Sullivan wanted to write
about, he’s really not too sure about it, but then-! and makes a deal. If Gilbert and
Sullivan stick together, Sullivan can make his grand opera in a brand new theater.
Sadly, a few months later, the producer gets on Gilbert’s bad side by charging him for
the price of new carpet for the theater, and Gilbert goes
You pinchbeck tinhorn Brummagem twit! You swine! It isn’t enough we fill your seats
each evening and your pockets each day? Come Sullivan, let us wash our hands of this third-rate
con!”
Eh… Well...
You thankless craven skaven varlet! You wouldn’t know art if it came in a convenient lozenge-shaped
package!
So the producer opens his new theater with Ivanhoe, an opera of epic proportions presented
by… Sturgis and Sullivan. The show was hot but the theater was not, and it closed down.
Sullivan tried going out on his own but when you work in comedy for 20 years, guess what
all your job offers are for comedy. So just two years later he got a call asking “Boys…
it’s time to get the band back together”. But it was too late. They made a couple shows,
but the magic had disappeared along with the audience and no lozenge could bring them back.
So perhaps it was too late for Sullivan to become the next Wagner. But y’know what,
he had a great run with Gilbert, and gosh darnit he wasn’t dead yet! He finally managed
to get a few jobs he seemed to genuinely enjoy. A ballet for the queen, an ode to the wives
and children of soldiers and sailors, and yes the occasional comic opera. And only three
years after leaving Gilbert, he had a heart attack and died.