If you’ve ever heard of Gilbert and Sullivan – if you have even a humming familiarity with any of their work – you’ll know that the Victorian-era duo wrote wildly-popular tongue-in-cheek light opera pieces, some of which continue to be frequently-performed and alluded to in popular culture. And if you asked someone to sing one song from Gilbert and Sullivan, they’d probably attempt the first lines of “I am the very model of a modern Major-General”, an oft-parodied patter song which is from Pirates of Penzance (1879).

I’ve seen Pirates of Penzance once before – at the Stratford Festival’s Avon Theatre, on a 1985 outing with my mother, who’d admitted the year before that she appreciated me taking her to see some Shakespeare plays but what she would like even better was Gilbert and Sullivan. In those days it wasn’t easy to access a plot synopsis or lyrics ahead of time, there were definitely no supertitles/captions, and seats at the front weren’t in my budget. So I missed lots of the clever rhymes and over-the-top dialogue/intentions.

Local company Foote in the Door opened their production of Pirates of Penzance last night at Théâtre Servus Credit Union (La Cité Francophone), directed by Ron Long. I sat in the first row so I wouldn’t miss anything – and they were using supertitles for all the songs, which made it even easier to follow the preposterous premises of the plot. Frederic, a nautically-minded boy who had been accidentally apprenticed to a pirate instead of a pilot (Brendan Smith), is coming of age and being released from his indentures. But he’s got an overdeveloped sense of duty, which keeps leading him into inconvenient obligations.

Frederic looks forward to the pleasures of civilian life. His old nursery maid, Ruth (Shauna Rebus), who followed him into piracy, now hopes to catch his affections as they leave the ship, but Frederick is hoping to meet younger prettier women. These two characters were among my favourites, but the company of twenty-one performers were all fun to watch and listen to. Andrew Kwan was a delightful Major-General Stanley, father to a chorus of eight daughters including Frederick’s choice Mabel (Ruth Wong-Miller). Some of the pirates doubled as police officers, led by their sergeant Aaron Schaan in unison nightstick choreography. And one of the daughters (Eilidh Tew) doubled flexibly as a pirate! Sisters Wong-Miller and Christina O’Dell had a lovely duet in the second act. There was some fighting with fencing foils, pistols, and other found weaponry (fight director Sarah Spicer). Russ Farmer is the Pirate King. He and his hapless band display an assortment of impressive facial hair, some of it real.

The company of pirates and daughters surround Andrew Kwan, the Modern Major-General, and his Sterling Award. Photo by Nanc Price Photography.

Pirates of Penzance is playing until November 24th, with tickets available through Showpass.