Who is Who ?

"As some day it may happen that a victim must be found - I've got a little list."

Mabel - "The Pirates of Penzance"

The only daughter of Major-General Stanley to come to the rescue of poor wandering Frederic. She is prone to imitate arias from grand Italian operas.

"Dearly as I loved him before, his heroic sacrifice to his sense of duty has endeared him to me tenfold. He has done his duty. I will do mine. Go ye and do yours."

Mad Margaret - "Ruddigore"

A crazy lady - an obvious caricature of theatrical madness. Her craziness is soothed by the magic word "Basingstoke".

"Come to a Commissioner and let me have it on affidavit! I once made an affidavit - but it died - it died - it died!"

"Why, oh why must (Mad Margaret) be played like a raving, screaming lunatic, whose only place should be the asylum? Margaret is not a mad girl really. She is a distraught girl - a genuine creature of pity, possibly - but a wild maniac she most certainly is not on any possible showing. Love-loneliness - that is her trouble. She is just a sad, solitary figure whose head has been turned crazy, but not demented, by heart-hungary grief. Suggesting her as a wild-eyed gabbling idiot is not only inartistic, but it shows a woeful mis-reading of the spirit of the part."

"The Life and Reminiscences of Jessie Bond" Published 1930

Major-General Stanley - "Pirates of Penzance"

Papa of an entire chorus of beautiful daughters. He is well acquainted with matters mathematical, and understands equations, both the simple and the quadratical.

"I ask you, have you ever known what it is to be an orphan, and you say "orphan". As I understand you, you are merely repeating the word "orphan" to show that you understand me."

Maybud, Rose - "Ruddigore"

A village maiden whose life, it seems, is always governed by a little book of etiquette.

"The man who bites his bread, or eats peas with a knife, I look upon as a lost creature, and he who has not acquired the proper way of entering and leaving a room is the object of my pitying horror."

Maynard, Elsie - "The Yeomen of the Guard"

A strolling singer who, for a hundred crowns, marries Colonel Fairfax who is under sentence of death.

"He is naught to me - for I never saw him. I was blindfolded, and he was to have died within the hour; and he did not die - and I am wedded to him, and my heart is broken!"

Melissa - "Princess Ida"

Lady Blanche's daughter. A young student in the women's university, brought up in the complete ignorance of men.

"Is this indeed a man? I've often heard of them, but, till to-day, never set eyes on one."

Meryll, Leonard - "The Yeomen of the Guard"

Sergeant Meryll's son. After gallant service he has been appointed a Yeomen of the Guard. He helps in the plot to help Colonel Fairfax escape from his cell.

"Aye, i would I had brought better news. I'd give my right hand - nay, my body - my life, to save his!"

Meryll, Phoebe - "The Yeomen of the Guard"

Sergeant Meryll's daughter. She helps Colonel Fairfax escape from his cell by sealing the key from Wilfred Shadbolt, the head jailor.

"Before I pretend to be sister to anybody again, I'll turn nun, and be sister to everybody - one as much as another!"

"(In) the case of Phoebe in 'The Yeomen of the Guard'. What I hate is that senseless "business" in "Were I thy bride". You know the what I mean - the scratching of the jailor's chin, the ruffling of his hair, the ogling of the eyes, and all those other "comic" antics which, goodness knows why, are supposed to be "funny". I think it is wicked that there should be this vulgarity in one of the loveliest of all the songs in the opera. Sit William Gilbert would not have endured it for a moment. He intended that the audience should hear his most beautiful lyric - and they never hear it today. Sir Arthur Sullivan would not have stood it either. The air he had written was far too sweet to be drowned beneath silly laughter.

"The Life and Reminiscences of Jessie Bond" Published 1930

Meryll, Sergeant - "The Yeomen of the Guard"

The Sergeant of the Yeomen helps plan the escape of Colonel Fairfax from his cell. The plot is discovered by Dame Carruthers who won't spill the beans if the Sergeant marries her.

"I'll convey a suit of Yeoman's uniform to the Colonel's cell - he shall shave off his beard, so that none shall know him, and I'll own him as my son, the brave Leonard Meryll."

Mikado - "The Mikado"

The Emperor of Japan. He insists that a more humane Mikado did in Japan existed but is quick to dish out the punishments in Act Two.

"Now, let's see about your execution - will after luncheon suit you? Can you wait till then?"

"Who, I want to know, intended the Mikado should prance about like a madman, hissing out his lines like a serpent? Never Gilbert! The very thought would make him turn in his grave. Never poor Dick Temple! The raving monster we so often see now is not one bit like the suave and oily Mikado he created at the Savoy. Temple's Mikado was - as we might put it - "every inch a gentleman". In his quiet refined way he made you feel that here, despite the grim and sardonic streak inhis nature, was really a fatherly ruler and a "true philantropist". Who possibly could believe that of present-day Mikados stalking about like a demon with leering eyes and ugly evil grimaces? When Temple sang "My object all sublime" he sang it in a smooth, unforced voice in which every syllable told, and all he did was to clasp and unclasp his hands and smile pleasantly like a kind-hearted despot. When he spoke of "boiling oil" he did not shriek like a fury. The lurid words seemed just to drop off easily from an oily tongue. That was where he was so much an artist. He knew that the real humour was in Gilbert's words, and he had no need to force it out, which is something rarely undestood by the present generation of players."

"The Life and Reminiscences of Jessie Bond" Published 1930

Murgatroyd, Major - "Patience"

Officer of the Dragoon Guards. In Act Two he abandons his uniform in favour of the exaggerated clothes of the contemporary poets of the day that the women of the village seem to worship.

"I can't help thinking we're a little stiff at it. It would be extremely awkward if we were to be "stuck" so!"

Murgatroyd, Sir Roderic - "Ruddigore"

Twenty-first baronet of Ruddigore and uncle of Sir Despard and Sir Ruthven.

"It is our duty to see that our successors commit their daily crimes in a conscientious and workman-like fashion."

Murgatroyd, Sir Ruthven - "Ruddigore"

Disguised as Robin Oakapple so as to escape the witch's curse. A curse that insists that the recipient must carry out a daily crime.

"For a week I have fulfilled my accursed doom! I have duly committed a crime a day! Not a great crime, I trust, but still, in the eyes of one as strictly regulated as I used to be, a crime."

Nanki-Poo - "The Mikado"

The Mikado's son. He is disguised as a wandering minstrel and was formerly the second trombone in the Titipu town band. He is in love with Yum-Yum.

"What if it should prove that I am no other than the son of his Majesty the Mikado?"

Oakapple, Robin - "Ruddigore"

A village youth who is really Sir Ruthven Murgatroyd, the inheritor of a witch's curse. A curse that insists that the recipient must carry out a daily crime.

"In doubt, difficulty, and danger I've always asked my heart what I should do, and it has never failed me."

Palmieri, Giuseppe - "The Gondoliers"

One of two gondolier brothers. He is in love with Tessa.

"And now our lives are going to begin in real earnest! What's a bachelor? A mere nothing - he's a chrysalis. He can't be said to live - he exists."

Palmieri Marco - "The Gondoliers"

One of two gondolier brothers. He is in love with Gianetta.

"What a delightful institution marriage is! Why have we wasted all this time? Why didn't we marry ten years ago?"

Partlet, Mrs - "The Sorcerer"

A pew-opener in the village of Ploverleigh. Her daughter is in love with the local vicar.

"I am aware that socially I am not everything that could be desired, nor am I blessed with an abundance of worldly goods, but I can, at least, confer on your estimable father the great and priceless dowry of a true, tender, and lovin' 'art!"

Patience - "Patience"

Title character. A village milkmaid who has no idea what love is.

"But the truly happy always seem to have so much on their minds. The truly happy never seem quite well."

Peep-Bo - "The Mikado"

One of the three little maids and wards of Ko-Ko.

"Well, dear, it can't be denied that the fact that your husband is to beheaded in a month is, in it's way, a drawback. It does seem to take the top off it, you know."

Phyllis - "Iolanthe"

An Arcadian shepherdess and Ward in Chancery. She is in love with Strephon.

"But I'd rather have half a mortal I do love, than half a dozen I don't!"

Pirate King - "Pirates of Penzance"

A renegade nobleman, leading a pirate band of fellow orphaned nobles.

"I don't think much of our profession, but, contrasted with respectability, it is comparatively honest."

Point, Jack - "The Yeomen of the Guard"

A strolling Jester and head over heels in love with Elsie Maynard, a strolling singer. In many productions Jack Point dies of a broken heart at the end.

"I will teach thee all my original songs, my self-constructed riddles, my own ingenious paradoxes; nay, more, I will reveal to thee the source whence I get them."

Pointdextre, Alexis - "The Sorcerer"

Son and heir of Sir Marmaduke, betrothed to Aline. An officer in the Grenadier Guards.

"Oh, that the world would break down the artificial barriers of rank, wealth, education, age, beauty, habits, taste, and temper, and recognize the glorious principle, that in marriage alone is to be found the panacea for every ill!"

Pointdextre, Sir Marmaduke - "The Sorcerer"

An elderly baronet, in love since youth with Lady Sangazure, whom he eventually marries.

"Where is the family, other than my own, in which there is no flaw?!"

Pooh-Bah - "The Mikado"

Lord High Everything Else. First Lord of the Treasury, Lord Chief Justice, Commander-in-Chief, Lord High Admiral, Master of the Buckhounds, Groom of the Backstairs, Archbishop of Titipu, and Lord Mayor. All these positions rolled into one with salaries attached!

"I am, in point of fact, a particularly haughty and exclusive person, of pre-Adamite ancestral descent."

Porter, Sir Joseph - "H.M.S. Pinafore"

First Lord of the Admiralty, in love with Josephine.

"Madam, I desire to convey to you officially my opinion that love is a platform upon which all ranks meet."