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Award Winning Outdoor Theatre Company Illyria brings Gilbert & Sullivan’s HMS Pinafore to Sefton Park Palm House.

 

Award Winning outdoor theatre company Illyria will bring their fabulous production of Gilbert & Sullivan’s HMS Pinafore to Sefton Park Palm House on 08 August 2021.
 

Set on board the warship HMS Pinafore, the opera cheerfully mocks such Great British institutions as Class, Patriotism and the Royal Navy. Josephine the captain's daughter is in love with Ralph a common sailor, but her father wants her to marry Sir Joseph Porter, First Lord of the Admiralty. The couple are caught as they elope from the ship and Ralph is locked in the ship's dungeon. Only when certain revelations are made by Buttercup, a dockside vendor, can everyone end up freely marrying their true hearts' loves. 
 

This wonderful comic opera gets the complete Illyria treatment, faithfully performed with the full score by a reduced cast on a beautiful nautical set. 
 

Now in its 29th year, Illyria has delighted audiences the length and breadth of the UK, and in the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, France, the United States and Canada performing some of the most well-loved productions on offer. The company has won 4 international "Best Performance" awards and attracted numerous "5-star" and "Critics' Choice" reviews for the lively clarity of its approach to Shakespeare's plays, the high quality of its family shows and the refreshingly quirky originality of its English classics adaptations and Gilbert & Sullivan musicals.

 

“Illyria has given more performances to more people across a wider area than any other open-air touring theatre company, proudly maintaining professional Equity-compliant productions for over a quarter of a century. We’re really pleased to be performing at Sefton Park Palm House and can’t wait see how the audience reacts!” says Artistic Director Oliver Gray.

 

Illyria has three shows touring across the UK this year: Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, an original adaptation of Hugh Lofting’s classic The Further Adventures of Doctor Dolittle and Gilbert & Sullivan’s wonderful operetta, HMS Pinafore.  All of which can be watched at the Palm House this summer. Illyria’s fast and furious, madcap style is sure to prove popular for the whole family, from theatre devotees to live performance newcomers.