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A Future Presentation
Gilbert & Sullivan's
The Sorcerer
7th-10th March 2012
A love potion brewed by John Wellington Wells, causes everyone in the village to fall in love with the first person they see. Will the spell be broken? Does love level all ranks?
Booking Camberley
Theatre Box Office
Order tickets
here at our advance booking Box Office
(01276) 707600
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 Rehearsal Fun in "The Sorcerer"
Rehearsals are going well for our production of The Sorcerer March 7th-10th at The Camberley Theatre. An interesting show featuring a "teapot" which delivers an unusual cup of tea which has the whole village falling in love with the first person they see on waking after drinking it. Of course true to Gilbert & Sullivan spin on society, people from different levels of society fall in love with each other, making most unsuitable matches.How will it all be resolved!! Come and see this lively production brought forward in time and set in 1951. Tickets from The Camberley Theatre Box Office. Click on the picture of The Camberley Theatre on our Home page to go straight to the theatre box office.
"The Sorcerer" - Musical Director
Our Musical Director for "The Sorcerer" is Geoffrey Horton. Many of you will remember him from our productions of Utopia Limited, Call Me Madam, White Horse Inn and most recently Die Fledermaus. Geoffrey studied music at London University and founded a Gilbert & Sullivan society at his college. He then pursued postgraduate studies at the Mayer-Lismann Opera Centre. He has had a varied stage career and has sung major operatic roles as well as many of the G&S character roles. He is currently the musical director of Opera At Bearwood and Sunningdale Savoy Chorus and his conducting plans for 2012 include La Boheme and Annie Get Your Gun. We are looking forward to welcoming Geoffrey at our first rehearsal on Wednesday, 19th October and to a happy and successful show under his direction.
"The Sorcerer" - Stage Director
 Joining us as Stage Director is Stuart Box, who directed our show “The Zoo” in 2010 and “Iolanthe” in 2008. He recently directed “The Mikado” for the SavoyNet performing group and the Buxton International G&S Festival in
August 2011, a production which won the award for “Best Traditional Production”. As well as directing shows, Stuart is a keen performer singing with several local societies. When he is not directing or singing G&S, Stuart
is the secretary of the Gilbert & Sullivan Society. Professionally, Stuart runs his own IT Training company.
AUDITION RESULTS– THE SORCERER
Auditions: A huge thank you to all those who auditioned - the standard was extremely high.
John Wellington Wells - Alastair Douglas
Sir Marmaduke Pointdextre - Andrew Few
Alexis - Alistair Bagshaw
Dr Daly - Geoff Vivian
Lawyer - Richard Morris
Notary - Kevin Hanlon
Lady Sangazure - Margaret Walker
Aline - Lori Tingay-Weber
Mrs Partlet - Rachael Jones
Constance - Helen Clutterbuck
The Sorcerer
After the early and resounding success of their one-act opera Trial By Jury in 1875, Gilbert and Sullivan, and
their producer Richard D'Oyly Carte, decided to produce a full-length work. Gilbert expanded on one of his earlier
writings based on a favourite operatic theme to create a plot about a magic love potion that would result in
everyone falling in love with the wrong partner.
A young man, Alexis, is obsessed with idea of love levelling all ranks and social distinctions. To promote his
beliefs, he invites the proprietor of J. W. Wells & Co., Family Sorcerers, to brew a love potion. This causes
everyone in the village to fall in love with the first person they see and results in the pairing of comically
mismatched couples.In the end, Wells must sacrifice himself to break the spell.
The Sorcerer was first produced at the Opéra Comique, a charming little theatre in the Strand, on November 17,
1877. The original run of the piece was a satisfactory 175 performances, enough of a success to encourage Gilbert &
Sullivan to continue to collaborate, which led to their next piece, H.M.S. Pinafore. And the rest, as they say, is
history.
Synopsis
The villagers of Ploverleigh are preparing to celebrate the betrothal of Alexis Pointdextre, the son of the local
baronet, and the blue-blooded Aline Sangazure. Only a young village maiden named Constance Partlet seems unwilling
to join in the happy mood, and we learn as she tells her mother that she is secretly in love with the local vicar,
Dr. Daly; and the cleric himself promptly soliloquises that he has been unlucky in love. However, despite Mrs.
Partlet's best attempts at matchmaking, the middle-aged Dr. Daly seems unable to conceive that a young girl like
Constance would be interested in him.
Alexis and Aline arrive, and it soon becomes clear that his widower father Sir Marmaduke and her widowed mother
Lady Sangazure are concealing long-held feelings for one another, which propriety however demands remain hidden.
The betrothal ceremony is carried out, and left alone together Alexis reveals to his fiancée his plans for
practical implementation of his principle that love should unite all classes and ranks. He has invited a
representative, John Wellington Wells, from a respectable London firm of sorcerers to Ploverleigh. Aline has
misgivings about hiring a real sorcerer.
Alexis instructs Wells to prepare a batch of love potion sufficient to
affect the entire village, except that on married people, it will have no effect.
Wells mixes the potion, assisted by sprites, fiends, imps, demons, ghosts and other fearsome magical beings in an
incantation. The village gathers for the wedding feast, and the potion is added to a teapot. All of the villagers,
save Alexis, Aline and Wells, drink it and, after experiencing some hallucinations, they fall unconscious.
At midnight that night, the villagers awake and, under the influence of the potion, each falls in love with the
first person of the opposite sex that they see. All of the matches thus made are highly and comically unsuitable;
Constance, for example, loves the ancient notary who performed the betrothal. However, Alexis is pleased with the
results, and now asserts that he and Aline should drink the potion themselves to seal their own love. Aline is hurt
by his lack of trust and refuses, offending him. Alexis is distracted, however, by the revelation of his upper-
class father having fallen for the lower-class Mrs Partlet, but he determines to make the best of this union.
Wells, meanwhile, is regretting the results that his magic has caused, and regrets them still more when the
fearsome Lady Sangazure fixes on him as the object of her affections. Aline decides to yield to Alexis' persuasion
and drinks the potion without telling Alexis. Upon awaking, she inadvertently meets Dr. Daly first and falls in
love with him. Alexis desperately appeals to Wells as to how the effects of the spell can be reversed. It turns out
that this requires that either Alexis or Wells himself yield up his life to Ahrimanes.
The people of Ploverleigh
rally against the outsider from London and Wells, resignedly, bids farewell and is swallowed up by the underworld
in a burst of flames. The spell broken, the villagers pair off according to their true feelings, and celebrate with
another feast.
Cast
SIR MARMADUKE POINTDEXTRE (an Elderly Baronet) - Bass
ALEXIS (of the Grenadier Guards – his Son) - Tenor
DR. DALY (Vicar of Ploverleigh) - Bass
JOHN WELLINGTON WELLS (of J. W. Wells & Co., Family Sorcerers) - Bass
LADY SANGAZURE (a Lady of Ancient Lineage) - Mezzo Soprano/Contralto
ALINE (her Daughter – betrothed to Alexis) - Soprano
MRS. PARTLET (a Pew-opener) - Mezzo Soprano/Contralto
CONSTANCE (her Daughter) - Soprano
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