''Dr Sullivan and Mr Gilbert'' is a play written by

Christopher Webber Christopher Webber (born 27 May 1953) is an English musicologist, dramatist, actor, theatre director and writer. Biography Webber was born in Bowdon, Cheshire (now Greater Manchester) and educated at The Manchester Grammar School and the Uni ...

, on commission from

Mull Theatre Mull Little Theatre was a theatre on the Isle of Mull in the Inner Scottish Hebrides. Built from the shell of an old byre (cowshed) in 1963 by Barrie and Marianne Hesketh, it began as the Thursday Theatre, an entertainment for the paying guests ...

in Scotland, with music by

Arthur Sullivan Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan (13 May 1842 – 22 November 1900) was an English composer. He is best known for 14 comic opera, operatic Gilbert and Sullivan, collaborations with the dramatist W. S. Gilbert, including ''H.M.S. Pinaf ...

. It is a fantasy retelling of the

Gilbert and Sullivan Gilbert and Sullivan refers to the Victorian-era theatrical partnership of the dramatist W. S. Gilbert (1836–1911) and the composer Arthur Sullivan (1842–1900) and to the works they jointly created. The two men collaborated on fourteen com ...

story, in which images and characters from

Lewis Carroll Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (27 January 1832 – 14 January 1898), better known by his pen name Lewis Carroll, was an English author, poet, mathematician, photographer and reluctant Anglicanism, Anglican deacon. His most notable works are ''Alice ...

's 1865 novel ''

Alice in Wonderland ''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'' (also known as ''Alice in Wonderland'') is an 1865 English Children's literature, children's novel by Lewis Carroll, a mathematics university don, don at the University of Oxford. It details the story of a ...

'' are superimposed onto familiar figures from the

Savoy Operas Savoy opera was a style of comic opera that developed in Victorian England in the late 19th century, with W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan as the original and most successful practitioners. The name is derived from the Savoy Theatre, which imp ...

. The play was performed at Mull Theatre throughout July, August and September 1993. It was revived in 1998 at

Glasgow Citizens' Theatre The Citizens Theatre, in what was the Royal Princess's Theatre, is the creation of James Bridie and playwright in residence Paul Vincent Carroll is based in Glasgow, Scotland, as a principal producing theatre. The theatre includes a 500-seat Ma ...

and then toured throughout Scotland. The play was published in 1999 by Couthurst Press ().

External links

Review of the 1998 Glasgow production
Works about Gilbert and Sullivan 1993 plays {{UK-theat-stub