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Cox and Box

Or

The Long-Lost Brothers

A Triumviretta in One Act

Adapted to the Lyric Stage

From J. Maddison Morton’s farce of Box and Cox

By

F. C. Burnand

The Music By

Arthur Sullivan

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Background to Cox and Box The play started life as a one-act farce entitled Box and Cox: a Romance of Real Life in One Act written by John Maddison Morton and first produced at the Lyceum theatre in 1847. Morton was a prolific writer of numerous farces, comic dramas and pantomimes for the stage, of which Box and Cox is his best known work and indeed entered the dictionary as a proverbial phrase. It was loosely inspired by a French farce entitled Frisette, in which an unscrupulous landlady rents out the same room to two different lodgers, but the complications surrounding Penelope Ann appear to have been Morton’s invention. It proved a great success and was frequently revived throughout the nineteenth century. The farcical non-sequitur of the ending became renowned amongst Victorian dramatists, many of whom attempted to emulate it.

A scene from Box and Cox

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Twenty years later, Francis Burnand (long-standing editor of Punch and writer of numerous comedies and burlesques for the stage) was casting around for a suitable entertainment for a group of friends who called themselves the Moray Minstrels. This was an informal group of leading literary and artistic lights of London and included at various times such luminaries as Rossetti, Dickens, Landseer, Holman Hunt and Tenniel (Punch cartoonist and illustrator of Alice in Wonderland). A young Arthur Sullivan, who had rapidly established himself as a rising

young composer and great musical hope of Victorian England, was also introduced into the group. F. C. Burnand described the genesis of Cox and Box thus:

Wishing to present something novel to my guests at a musical and dramatic supper-party … the notion suddenly occurred to me of turning Maddison Morton’s farce Box and Cox into an opera … Meeting Arthur Sullivan in Bond Street, I confided to him the happy thought. He took to it enthusiastically. We had about three weeks before us for carrying out the design. I went to work at once; topsy-turvied Box and Cox into Cox and Box, and metamorphosed Mrs. Bouncer into Sergeant Bouncer, so as to give an opportunity for a martial air. I took my works, as each of the numbers were finished, to Arthur Sullivan, who lived at that time close at hand; and in a very few days his work was completed.

John Maddison Morton

Portrait of F. C. Burnand

from Vanity Fair

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The text is in fact almost entirely Morton’s, with some passages transmuted into lyrics by Burnand, and the occasional line (generally the more outrageous puns) added by Burnand to the text. Morton’s original landlady, Mrs Bouncer, became Sergeant Bouncer owing to the constraints of the cast available. There was subsequently some disagreement amongst the participants as to the precise date and location of the first performance, with several different versions of events circulating. However, the piece appears to have had its first airing at a private house-party in May 1866 with George du Maurier [great-grandfather of the novelist Daphne] playing Mr. Box, Harold Power as Mr. Cox and John Foster as Sergeant Bouncer. Sullivan provided an extempore accompaniment at the piano. When, after the death of a member of Punch’s staff, a charity performance was organised for the benefit of his widow and children, Cox and Box was suggested as an ideal item for the evening’s entertainment. This entailed re-scoring the piece for orchestra and composing an overture. According to Burnand, “The performance was to take place upon a Saturday, and on the previous Monday, Sullivan had not touched a note.” The first public performance took place at the Adelphi theatre on 11th May 1867 with Sullivan conducting and received a glowing review from The Times. The reviewer for the magazine Fun, one W. S. Gilbert, was equally complimentary, but noted:

Mr. Sullivan’s music is charming throughout … [but] is, in many places, of too high a class for the grotesquely absurd plot to which it is wedded. It is very funny, here and there, and grand or graceful where it is not funny; but the grand and the graceful have, we think, too large a share of the honours to themselves.

Sir Arthur Sullivan

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an observation which was to receive several reprises during the course of their collaboration over the Savoy operas. After this public success, Cox and Box was taken on by German Reed and received its first professional performance at the Royal Gallery of Illustration (so named to avoid the rackety associations of the word “theatre”), where it was partnered with No Cards, a comic play by W. S. Gilbert with music by Frederic Clay. It became one of the Gallery’s greatest hits and ran for nearly 300 performances. Cox and Box was revived by the D’Oyly Carte Opera Company in 1894, where a shortened version was performed as a curtain raiser to another Burnand and Sullivan piece The Chieftain. Subsequently, more substantial cuts were made and it entered the company’s repertoire in an abridged version as a curtain raiser to some of the shorter Savoy operas such as The Sorcerer, HMS Pinafore and The Pirates of Penzance. It continued to be regularly performed by the D’Oyly Carte up to the 1970s.

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Director’s Note Cox and Box is a delightful piece and deserves to be better known. One of the best farces of the Victorian era is lifted to further heights by the addition of music by its foremost composer, which sparkles with freshness and wit. It has further interest as Sullivan’s first foray into comic opera and represents one of the few ‘non-Gilbert’ Sullivan pieces which entered the D’Oyly Carte repertoire. It is rarely performed by amateur operatic groups because it involves so few members of the company and requires a fairly complicated set. A small group of the Grosvenor Light Opera Company therefore decided to develop this production independently of GLOC’s main show1. We intend to tour it to a number of small-scale venues across London, culminating in an appearance at the G&S Festival in Harrogate: please see page 13 for further details of tour dates and venues. We have gone back to the original version of the text and music; the Savoy edition developed by the D’Oyly Carte Opera Company, which is the version which has become best known and performed, differs substantially from the piece as it was originally envisaged and produced. Significant dialogue, several verses of songs and the entire Gambling Song were cut, which makes some of the action a little unclear and results in the loss of some excellent moments. We have therefore restored the cuts and are excited to be presenting the full original version of Cox and Box (bar, I must confess, a few minor cuts of repeats of “Rataplan”: even the initial reviews commented upon “an occasional monotony”!) We hope you enjoy the production as much as we have enjoyed putting it together.

1 Main show: The Mikado, to be presented in London in July 2014 and at the International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival in Harrogate in August

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Introduction Sergeant Bouncer, a retired militiaman, has hit on a capital plan for maximising his income: he rents out his spare room both to Mr Cox, who works all day for a hatter, and to Mr Box, who works all night at a newspaper printer's. Neither of his tenants is either the wiser, and he gets double rent for his room! What could possibly go wrong? Cast and crew James John Cox Simon C. B. Jones (a Journeyman Hatter) John James Box Robert Richmond (a Journeyman Printer) Sergeant Bouncer Stoo Gill (late of the Dampshire Yeomanry, with Military Reminiscences) Director Vicky Simon Pianist Helen Fisher Publicity Bekah Ashworth Photography Lucy Waring Programme images With thanks as always to Theatresearch Costumes Courtesy of Alan Monk Esq. Props Grateful acknowledgement to Messrs. E. Bay Facial Hair The Cast Set Courtesy of Hillingdon Theatre

Societies Workshop Co-operative (HTSWC)

Rehearsal space With thanks to London Underground Ltd for hosting a periodic “Consolidation Meeting” on the 10th floor of 55 Broadway

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Acknowledgements The cast and crew would like to acknowledge the following hostelries which have contributed so significantly to the evolution of this enterprise: The Old Clubhouse, Buxton The Coal Hole, Strand The Gallery, Pimlico Cask, Pimlico The Old Star, Westminster The Bowler, Clerkenwell The Jerusalem Tavern, Farringdon The Lofty Turtle, Richmond The Savile Club, Mayfair The Draft House, Tower Bridge The Market Porter, Borough Market Neal’s Yard Dairy, Borough Market The Mug House, London Bridge The Ship and Shovell, Charing Cross The Tattershall Castle, Embankment The Dog and Duck, Soho Obika Mozzarella Bar, Soho The Duke of Wellington, Soho The Coach and Horses, Ickenham The Jolly Sportsman, Chesham The Waggon and Horses, Chesham The Misty Moon, Chesham The Red Lion, Chesham The Coach and Horses, Chesham The Queen’s Head, Chesham The Gamekeeper’s Lodge, Chesham Red Squirrel Brewing Co., Chesham The Spread Eagle, Croydon The Two Chairmen, Westminster … and all others which for some reason have escaped our recollection.

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Biographies Simon C. B. Jones Mr. Cox Simon originally hails from the band pit of musical theatre where he has played trumpet, trombone, sousaphone and bucket for a number of full runs at the Edinburgh Festival since 1999 (Sweeney Todd; Mystery of Edwin Drood). Tiring of the debauched musician’s lifestyle, he switched to directing G&S productions (Iolanthe, Patience and The Mikado) and, owing to a hankering for excessive facial hair topiary, made the leap onto stage to join GLOC in 2010 for their production of Yeomen of the Guard playing Leonard Meryll and "camp" Yeoman. After directing GLOC’s 2011 Gondoliers, he returned as "Emergency Male Chorus – just add wine" in the nick of time for 2013's Patience and will be playing Ko-Ko in GLOC's 2014 production of The Mikado. He is a teetotaller, Methodist minister and compulsive liar. Robert Richmond Mr. Box Rob sustained a head injury while playing the Duke in Patience at last year's Buxton G&S festival, and now can't remember where he lives. He also occasionally has traumatic flashbacks to exploding teapots from his other previous appearance with GLOC as the eponymous Sorcerer. He can be found singing in numerous guises around London, and occasionally playing the church organ very loudly after midnight... Stoo Gill Sergeant Bouncer This is a story about an ordinary teddy bear. When he was made they found something wrong with him and threw him away, like a piece of rubbish, into an old dark store room. Then from outer-space a spotty man brought him to life with his cosmic dust. He took him to a magic cloud where Mother Nature gave him special powers. That bear became... a tap dancing, dragon slaying, email marketeer!

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Vicky Simon Director Vicky first encountered G&S as a susceptible teenager when she was cast as Pitti-Sing in The Mikado, after which she has frequently brightened the lives of friends and family alike with her tendency to break into choruses in public. After a more restrained phase as a choral scholar in the Chapel choir of Trinity College, Oxford, she joined GLOC in 2012 for their production of The Sorcerer. Subsequent appearances in Princess Ida and Patience have been accompanied by increasingly bold forays into the production side. She is delighted to have been given the opportunity of making her directorial debut with Cox and Box, though disappointed that the cast have vetoed her proposed pyrotechnics… Helen Fisher Pianist From the age of three, Helen has never been far from a piano. She has performed with a range of groups from an indie band to an all-girl a cappella troop, and stumbled upon GLOC in time for last year's production of Patience. When not helping companies to communicate with people about all things environmental, she is currently one half of musical duo Peter Panic and the Pixie. Forthcoming performances of Cox and Box

Friday 23rd May, Saturday 24th May, Sunday 25th May 2014 at the Little Theatre in the Park, Chesham

Wednesday 25th June and Thursday 26th June at the Etcetera Theatre, Camden

Thursday 31st July and Friday 1st August at the Rosemary Branch Theatre, Islington

Saturday 16th August at the Late Night Festival Club, Harrogate

The Dukebox Theatre, Brighton, September – date TBC

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About GLOC The Grosvenor Light Opera Company is one of London's leading G&S Societies and one of the only amateur operatic societies both to rehearse and perform in Central London. As a result, we attract a membership largely of young professionals who work in the centre of town. We currently perform one fully-staged production with orchestra each summer together with other cabaret and concert performances. We pride ourselves on being friendly and welcoming to new members. Since its formation, GLOC has staged over 70 performances of Gilbert and Sullivan Operas. It has developed close links with other operatic societies in the Greater London area as well as having sung with principals from both the old and the new D’Oyly Carte at various concerts and open-air performances in Holland Park and the Royal Albert and Royal Festival Halls. In 2013 GLOC made their debut performance at the International G&S Festival in Buxton with Patience and have been invited back to perform The Mikado at the Festival in Harrogate in 2014. GLOC is always looking for new members, so if you’d like to be involved in our next show, visit www.gloc.org for more information! GLOC Angels and Archangels We are extremely grateful for the backing of our Angels and Archangels, whose ongoing support of the society is crucial in enabling us to continue performing. For a small monthly donation to the society, the scheme offers the chance to engage more closely with the current members of the society, offers access to open rehearsals and invitations to special events. Archangels also receive one free ticket to most GLOC performances. Joining GLOC as an Angel or Archangel ensures that you maintain close links with the society, keep regular contact with past and current members, and enjoy the knowledge that you are enabling this historic and well-established society to survive into the future.

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Please contact Jan on jannysmith79@gmail.com if you are interested in joining as an Angel or Archangel – we would be delighted to hear from you. We are very grateful to the following former members, current members and friends of GLOC who have already joined the scheme: Archangels Matthew W. M. Andrews Arram Berlyn Gardner Katharine & Michael Berman David Bonar Alison Borysiewicz Heeran Buhecha Distilled Ltd Shelagh Dixon Nicola Elliott Pam & Sam Everton Stuart Gill Andy Goldby Judy & Ron Goldby Paul Gray Julian Hofmann Jane Kempler Amy & Oliver Lazenby Duncan & Suzi Morris Penny Mullord Sarah & Ben Olney Sarah Pearson Rob Richmond Christopher Roberts

Elizabeth Simon Jan Smith Liz & Allan Smith Jean & Rebecca Wilmshurst Tony Young Angels Duncan Barker Chris Crowcroft Virginia Henry Anna Keat Heather Monro Brian Morris Simon Over Helen Price Ritchie Alexander Scott Alice Wilkinson Oliver Williams ... and those donors who wish to remain anonymous.

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