Halifax Gilbert and Sullivan Society Newsletter

Getting nearer!

Only four more Friday music rehearsals to go before we start on the floor with The Grand Duke, and it's time to be rounding up our audience. We enclose two booking forms with this Newsletter, one for your own bookings and one that we hope you can hand on to an interested friend or colleague. They're less likely to have the excuse this time of saying "Oh, I've seen that one already"! If you want any more booking forms (or one or more A4 posters, the same size as this Newsletter), please get in touch with Kathryn at the above address.

Performing members will have picked up a floor rehearsal schedule, but in case you lose it Colin Fine has put the Society website (see above), which is proving a very useful access point for people wanting to contact us.

We were sorry to hear of the recent death of Bernice Hoyle, a long-standing patron of the Society who has been seen at Club Nights, Concerts and Shows over many years (and who might be better known by members as Barbara Thompson's mum). Our sympathy goes to Mr Hoyle and the Thompson family.

The Other Show

If you're not on holiday at the time, please come along to Halifax Agricultural Show in Savile Park on Saturday August 13th. The Society will have a stand there, and we are once more indebted to Jane Fellows for co-ordinating everything. We will be advertising The Grand Duke, encouraging people to join us, and offering things (eatable and otherwise) for sale. There will be a competition to guess the whereabouts of Pfennig-Halbpfennig (on a map of 19th-century Germany), and a chance to win the services of a Duke and Duchess for a morning (the former bearing an uncanny resemblance to Peter Sugden).

Saltaire Festival (Saturday and Sunday September 17/18) is looking for singers and other musicians to fill slots of approximately 20 minutes each between 11 and 3 each day. If you are interested in doing something please contact Ann Perry (01274-630162).

Welcome recovery

Following the item in the last Newsletter about Steven Mellor and the fire at his home, we are delighted to report that he was discharged from Hospital on June 4th, having made very speedy progress from his previous critical condition. Huddersfield readers may have seen a substantial article on Steven's experience in the Huddersfield Examiner of June 17th (still viewable on the Examiner website). He is now living in a flat in a new mill conversion in central Huddersfield, pending re-furbishment of his house, which may not be completed until the end of the year. Those who know him will be happy (and perhaps surprised) to know that so far he has not felt the urge to smoke again!

Brush up your googly

The annual Cricket Match will take place on Sunday September 11th on the usual patch of rough ground at the bottom end of Savile Park. We should start at about 2.00 p.m., and as usual the quality of the cricket will be a lot less important than the aptness of the naes cunjured up for the various dishes at half-time tea (not all sausage rolls, please!). All welcome, whether you want to play or not. We've been remarkable lucky with the weather over the years, and it's a very good social afternoon.

We are the champions

Eight intrepid members of the Society made the trip to Wakefield Sports Club on Tuesday July 19th to take part in Wakefield G & S's Quiz Night and Memorabilia Fair. After several us of had parted with money for posters, books, commemorative mugs and the like, we settled down, refreshed from the bar, to an excellent quiz st by Graham Weston (who currently directs for the Wakefield and Batley societies). When the scores had been added up, both of the Society teams finished in the top five, but one (the 'Alifax Anoraks) was the clear winner. Some Marks and Spencer vouchers, suitably converted, will help to swell Society funds.

Trivia Corner

Following Sheilra Simpson's pangram offerings in the last Newsletter, here are a couple of Duke-specific ones from Leyland Smith.

• The Grand Duke will prove to be just a quirky mix of zany comedy.
• Quite crazy Gilbert and Sullivan experts will joyfully perform The Grand Duke.

We're still open to more suggestion. Remember - it's a sentence containing all 26 letters of the alphabet.

And here are some recent student quotes supplied by a Huddersfield University music lecturer.

• Overall, the programme seemed too long and was not varied enough, although if one goes to an organ recital I suppose one expects to hear lots of organ music.
• Elisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre lived from 1667 till 1729, so she is dead now, but that asied she was a really good composer.
• Before the introduction of the early gramophone, songs which contained lyrics were almost exclusively religious hymns (with the exception of operas).
• In the distant past, an ancient man must have discovered that by stretching a thong between dead animals, a musical sound would be produced.

Have a good summer, and push the show!