It’s interesting to discover that Gilbert & Sullivan has been as popular in Australia as it has been in Britain. This we owe to the Williamson Opera Company who provided all professional productions of Gilbert & Sullivan as the D’Oyly Carte Company did in England until copyright expired in the 1960s. Both companies grew rich on box office takings, both were excellently organised, maintaining archives which are invaluable for students of theatre research.

Peter Goffin and Philip Howden’s Gondoliers as seen over 40 years. All photos © Theatre Heritage Australia, Melbourne; Trove, National Library of Australia; State Library of Victoria

JC Williamson (or JCW) catalogued all back cloths, borders and stage sets in a series of Scene Books, and boasted that any back cloth in their Richmond, Melbourne warehouse could be retrieved in a matter of minutes. More extraordinarily, London would change their designs every decade or two, whereas JCW presented his productions as the Victorians would have seen them. Consequently, by the time photography had become developed enough to take stage pictures in England, all of the original sets had been replaced and with only engravings left to represent them. When Richard D’Oyly Carte...