Details

The rags-to-riches story of Dick Whittington and his cat will be familiar to pantomime lovers everywhere. Having lost his heart to his master's daughter Alice, our everyman flees to seek his fortune on the high seas, only to be shipwrecked on a rat-infested island. Thanks to his cat, who single-handedly exterminates this plague, Dick wins the gratitude of the King, who sends them back to London in glory, where Dick becomes Lord Mayor. What won't be familiar is Offenbach's exciting musical rendering of this story, which includes such swashbuckling numbers as 'Great at Colonizing is England Understand?' and the wistful 'Haunted Kickaboo'. Yet despite being the hit of the 1874-75 season, Whittington was swept away by the Gilbert and Sullivan phenomenon, and forgotten. Fast-forward over a hundred years, and a chance discovery in a Paris bookshop of the only known score leads to a revival of interest in the lost work.

Creatives/Company

Music: Offenbach
Company: University College London
Director: Jamie Hayes
Design: Katy Tuxford