A Review of Stephen Turnbulls' talk

by Nick Sales


A respectable number of festival-goers, including eight Savoynetters, were entertained for ninety minutes on Monday afternoon by Stephen Turnbull, secretary of the Sir Arthur Sullivan Society (and, significantly, himself a Savoynetter)

Stephen regaled the audience with an incredible range of G & S recordings, conveyed to us by a variety of means. He began by playing us one of the earliest recordings ever made worldwide, that of the speaking voice of Sir Arthur Sullivan himself, speaking about Edison's "new invention", and pronouncing himself to be "astonished and somewhat terrified" by the potential of the new invention.

Although this particular item was played from a CD, the next 40 minutes or so of music was in the form of 78's which were played on a period wind-up gramaphone. Thus we heard various renditions of Sullivan's best-known piece, "The Lost Chord" that differed about as far as it was possible to get from "normal" recordings. We heard some very early recordings of G&S with brass accompaniment featuring some very early D'Oyly Carte stars.

We were treated (I'm not quite sure if that word is appropriate) to many bizarre interpretations including G&S and handbell ringing, G&S and accordions, and even the opening chorus to "The Mikado" played on the bagpipes.

We then heard some quirky recordings on CD and tape, including some by very famous people not normally associated with G&S, such as Kieth Michell, Frankie Howard, Groucho Marx and Stanley Holloway.

We also heard the late lamented Donald Adams singing Bunthorne's aria from act 1 of Patience ("If you're anxious for to shine"), recorded, I think, in 1962 or thereabouts, and showing a lightness of tone that was most pleasant to listen to, although Adams's voice was unmistakeable.

Stephen kept the tone informal throughout, setting many "posers" for the audience to answer, including "guess the artiste", "guess the instrument", and even "guess the piece of music".

It was hard to believe that 90 minutes had passed by the time Stephen wrapped up his talk at half past four, and he received a very warm hand from an appreciative audience.

Ian Smith then appeared and urged the audience to stay behind, as there was a BBC film crew approaching who wanted to film a flavour of a master-class, and there was a very warm hand for Miss Gillian Knight, freshly arrived from Finland, and doing the master-class "mock up" at very short notice.

Her "subject" was Neil Smith, festival Director and Secretary, who sang "When I went to the bar" from "Iolanthe", accompanied by our own Clive Woods, with page turning duties performed by Don Smith. Filming lasted for about 10 minutes, then the film crew departed and we were all able to relax.

A very enjoyable couple of hours it was too!