Gilbert and Sullivan's DRACULA has just been excavated by @mitchbenn.bsky.social. I can't wait for the complete version and the first night... youtu.be/FMPA3VEeqwE... - ThreadSky

neilhimself.neilgaiman.com • 387 days ago

Gilbert and Sullivan's DRACULA has just been excavated by @mitchbenn.bsky.social. I can't wait for the complete version and the first night...
https://youtu.be/FMPA3VEeqwE?si=C0Qic6Coa6HXBO2v

Comments

yourcanadiangf.bsky.social•386 days ago

I did once see Ruddigore performed in Durham with Mad Margaret dressed as the Bride of Frankenstein. And a touch of Dracula

bullmoose.bsky.social•385 days ago

I don't imagine you are referring to Durham, North Carolina. The Durham Savoyards put on a show every year and I have missed few shows in the last 15 or 20 years. Can't recall any like this.

bandcgames.bsky.social•385 days ago

My favorite G&S play!

neilhimself.neilgaiman.com•385 days ago

As a boy I dreamed of directing Ruddigore as a real Gothic.

bandcgames.bsky.social•385 days ago

It’s not too late! I’d love to see you do it

duncaneagleson.bsky.social•385 days ago

Many years ago I was involved in a rather gothic production of The Sorcerer.
I've always wished someone would write a proper horror story involving J.W. Wells & Co., but no one ever did (that I know of), so I'm now doing so.

uridev.urieldana.com•385 days ago

It isn’t a book nor is it horror but there is a paranormal storyline on HG Wells on DVD.

duncaneagleson.bsky.social•385 days ago

Different Wells, but certainly of interest, thanks!

uridev.urieldana.com•385 days ago

Oops…sorry.

neilhimself.neilgaiman.com•385 days ago

Oh good.

ethicsgirl.bsky.social•385 days ago

Please do. Once performed in a version set in a run down seaside town on a Bank Holiday. Sir Despard entered on a Vincent Black Lightning.

aspenjunge.bsky.social•385 days ago

When I was a kid, PBS ran a series of all the Gilbert and Sullivan operettas. The Mad, Bad Baron was played to perfection by Vincent Price.

neilhimself.neilgaiman.com•385 days ago

I remember him as being wonderful but the whole as being incredibly badly directed. I just watched 5 minutes on YouTube and the direction had not improved in the last 40 years.
https://youtu.be/KEZUCKM_6Xo?si=OEp0te575BCQQCLJ

billzbub.bsky.social•385 days ago

Basingstoke it is!

drdarkeny.bsky.social•385 days ago

Does it sound as bad as it does on my Bluetooth speaker? I can barely understand what Price is singing—though he's making his intentions clear from his acting! 😀

Vincent Price did enough crappy movies he can even act convincingly through a PBS GREAT PERFORMANCE! 🤣

iamapyriteking.bsky.social•385 days ago

I remember that. Terribly disappointing.

andrewcrowther.bsky.social•385 days ago

Such a great piece! Not surprised that the original audiences were baffled by it - everything in it is (deliberately) off-kilter, even more than usual in Gilbert and Sullivan....

cityinahole.bsky.social•387 days ago

lol I swear they did a bit like this on Mitch & Webb.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Y27MfF-n_Y

merrittk.com•387 days ago

!!!

gojira1000.bsky.social•386 days ago

Someone alert @annodracula.bsky.social

jefflanam.bsky.social•387 days ago

This reminds me of @reduced.bsky.social ; it's like something the Reduced Shakespeare Company would do.

555tee.bsky.social•387 days ago

This is amazing. Thank you, @mitchbemn.bsky.social !!!

abbywilde.bsky.social•385 days ago

This is the exact intersection of my more unfashionable interests. Thank you.

supergeek21.bsky.social•387 days ago

Hahaha! Oh wow! I do hope someone produces this!

zhochaka.org.uk•387 days ago

This bear hadn't realised how long a gap there had been in the G&S career. The events in Whitby suggest dates which fit eerily well, when weather records are used.

zhochaka.org.uk•387 days ago

The last chapter of the book ends with a short note, dated seven years after the events of the book. That could be after The Gondoliers was written but it could have been during the run of The Yeomen Of The Guard.

zhochaka.org.uk•387 days ago

Chapter VII describes the shipwreck at Whitby. A newspaper cutting dated 8th August with mentions of Saturday followed by "yesterday", the sudden overnight storm, and the wreck of the Demeter.

I am not sure whether the 8th August was the Sunday or the Monday. But not a Friday.

zhochaka.org.uk•387 days ago

The "real" shipwreck was in October.

The Dracula shipwreck would have to be in 1886 or 1887. The following year was a leap year. Sunset would have been about 19:45 (no BST). It would be within a few days of a full moon.

amyrlinstudy.bsky.social•385 days ago

lucy :(

ninjamonkky.bsky.social•387 days ago

Oh I love, Major Monster General, and, Three Little Maids are Ghouls!

refractedcreative.bsky.social•386 days ago

This is amazing 😂

johndacey.bsky.social•386 days ago

🎼
To lie in lustful limbo in a grim, grey grave
Awaiting the arrival of some trusting naïf
To satisfy the lust for blood that I so crave
From a blonde and buxom bimbo as my sex-starved slave!

indigoevans.bsky.social•386 days ago

Thank you. This has made my morning. Time to pop over to Farcebook to see if Dacre Stoker has seen it.
P.S. he 'may' be in need of a new co-author.

pandemoniumpress.bsky.social•386 days ago

Neal - Is this truly for real? I mean bad G&S is better than a lot of stuff out there today, but the phrasing seems so… contemporary?

neilhimself.neilgaiman.com•385 days ago

No, it's Mitch.

kww.bsky.social•385 days ago

My favourite in the "false attribution" genre remains "Franz Kafka's 'It's a Wonderful Life' ". Peter Capaldi apparently had a slip of the tongue and then decided he had to make the film.

jamesneill.bsky.social•384 days ago

But isn’t “It’s a wonderful life” a reasonable alternative for the book that used to be called Amerika, but is now known as Der Verschollene (The man who disappeared or “the disappeared one”)? At least up to a point.

neilhimself.neilgaiman.com•385 days ago

And it got him an Oscar!

mmaramotswe.bsky.social•385 days ago

I'm out of the loop but now I have to look that one up and watch it

drdarkeny.bsky.social•385 days ago

Capaldi & Tom Hanks were on GRAHAM NORTON and Capaldi told how he scrounged up enough money to fly Coach to & from Hollywood—and how all the passengers in Coach coming back got to hold the Oscar! Then he & Hanks played up being Oscar winners for laughs... 😁

https://youtu.be/jpKPnb5MoRs?t=160