The Mikado (1954)

On Boxing Day 1954 the BBC broadcast a performance of The Mikado that they had recorded live at the Savoy Theatre a month earlier.  Although the BBC's original copy is long gone, an off-air copy has been discovered and while the sound quality is no match for what is achievable today with live off-air recordings, and the tape does having a few problematic moments, this transcription of a wonderful live performance and a great piece of D'Oyly Carte and G&S history will still, we are confident, be welcomed by enthusiasts.  We make this disclaimer against the sound quality only so that potential buyers are not expecting too much - if you are in doubt then give this a miss - but, even so, the sound is not all that bad and as Tony Gower states in his accompanying notes "Having heard the original surviving off-air tape, I can confirm that a remarkable job of sound restoration has been done in bringing this recording to its present condition, though inevitably the sound quality still falls some way short of what could have been achieved with better source material. However, these technical shortcomings very quickly fade into insignificance and are barely noticed once the performance is under way and one is drawn into the action." The cast is Peter Pratt, Donald Adams, Fisher Morgan, Neville Griffiths, Jeffrey Skitch, John Banks, Ann Drummond-Grant, Joyce Wright, Beryl Dixon and May Sanderson, and the performance is conducted by Isidore Godfrey. Fans of the 1957 Decca recording of the Mikado (and of the Pratt era in general) may be especially delighted with this archive recording as many of the performances captured in the studio can now be heard live.