Author of Audiobooks - W. S. Gilbert

LibriVox volunteers bring you 17 recordings of O Hollow Hollow Hollow by W.S. Gilbert. This was the Weekly Poetry project for January 8, 2012. Here is a poem by the "fleshly" poet, Bunthorne, from the opera Patience, by Gilbert and Sullivan. Who...

LibriVox volunteers bring you 26 recordings of The Disagreeable Man by Sir W. S. Gilbert. This was the Fortnightly Poetry project for June 10, 2012. The Bab Ballads are a collection of light verse by W. S. Gilbert, illustrated with his own comic...

The Pirates of Penzance; or, The Slave of Duty is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. The story concerns Frederic, who, having completed his 21st year, is released from his apprenticeship to a band...

In this recording, one person reads the entire play, all parts, including the stage directions. Even without the support of Arthur Sullivan’s music and the interpretation of actors, the consummate silliness of Gilbert’s libretto entertains. H.M.S....

Iolanthe is a fairy banished from fairyland for the crime of marrying a mortal. Her half-fairy, half-human son Strephon is a fairy down to the waist, but his legs are human. He loves Phyllis, but she is courted by the whole House of Lords and the...

LibriVox volunteers bring you 19 recordings of The Ghosts' High Noon by W. S. Gilbert. This was the Weekly Poetry HALLOWE'EN project for October 24th, 2010....

This is a subset of the second collection of Gilbert’s “Bab Ballads” – light verses poking fun at the life and people of his time in Gilbert’s unique “topsy-turvey” style. The epitaph on his memorial on the Victoria Embankment in London is “HIS FOE...

In this recording, one person reads the entire play, all parts, including the stage directions. Even without the support of Arthur Sullivan’s music and the interpretation of actors, the consummate silliness of Gilbert’s libretto entertains. The...

The Mikado is the ninth of the 14 Gilbert and Sullivan musical collaborations. It opened in 1885, had the second longest run for any work of musical theatre of the time, and remains the most frequently performed Gilbert and Sullivan. It was adapted...

Sir William Schwenck Gilbert was an English dramatist, librettist, poet and illustrator best known for the fourteen comic operas (known as the Savoy operas) produced in collaboration with the composer Arthur Sullivan. The most famous of these...

Sir William Schwenck Gilbert was an English dramatist, librettist, poet and illustrator best known for the fourteen comic operas (known as the Savoy operas) produced in collaboration with the composer Sir Arthur Sullivan. The most famous of these...

The Bab Ballads are a collection of light verse by W. S. Gilbert, illustrated with his own comic drawings. Gilbert wrote the Ballads before he became famous for his comic opera librettos with Arthur Sullivan. In writing the Bab Ballads, Gilbert...

Sir William Schwenck Gilbert was an English dramatist, librettist, poet and illustrator best known for the fourteen comic operas (known as the Savoy operas) produced in collaboration with the composer Sir Arthur Sullivan. The most famous of these...

H.M.S. Pinafore; or, The Lass That Loved a Sailor, is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and a libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It opened in London, England, on 25 May 1878 and ran for 571 performances, which was the second-longest...

Sweethearts is a comic play billed as a "dramatic contrast" in two acts by W. S. Gilbert. The play tells a sentimental and ironic story of the differing recollections of a man and a woman about their last meeting together before being separated and...

Sir William Schwenck Gilbert was an English dramatist, librettist, poet and illustrator best known for the fourteen comic operas (known as the Savoy operas) produced in collaboration with the composer Sir Arthur Sullivan.Gilbert also wrote the Bab...

A comic operetta which is a satire on the themes of fashion and pretension and hero-worship. Bunthorne is a poet who pretends to be highly "idealised" in order to impress the ladies. They all worship him, except for Patience, the dairy maid, who is...

The Bab Ballads are a collection of light verse by W. S. Gilbert, illustrated with his own comic drawings. Gilbert wrote the Ballads before he became famous for his comic opera librettos with Arthur Sullivan. In writing the Bab Ballads, Gilbert...

In the town of Titipu, flirting is punishable by death on the command of the Mikado himself! But what happens when the Lord High Executioner is himself condemned to die? And what secret does the wandering minstrel Nanki-Poo hide, that the Mikado and...

In this recording, one person reads the entire play, all parts, including the stage directions. Even without the support of Arthur Sullivan’s music and the interpretation of actors, the consummate silliness of Gilbert’s libretto entertains. The...

Pinafore’s sublimely silly story is made even sillier by this (ostensibly for children) 1908 story version of the 1878 Gilbert and Sullivan operetta. Gilbert, the author of the operetta’s lyrics, writes this version of the story with his tongue...

Gilbert of Gilbert and Sullivan fame also wrote non-musical plays without Sullivan as a partner. Here is a dramatic play far afield from the comedy musicals we often think of when we hear Gilbert's name: Prince Florian of Spain arrives on The Island...

About as far from a rollicking Gilbert and Sullivan musical as you can get: this is Gilbert's tragic version of Goethe's Faust. - Summary by ToddHW Cast list: Dominic: David Purdy Anselm: Alan Mapstone Faustus: Mike Manolakes Gottfried: Kurt...

A drama from the Gilbert of Gilbert and Sullivan. Pursued by the Parliamentary Army after the Battle of Worcester, some Royalist soldiers take cover in Dan'l Druce's hut on the Norfolk Coast until they can escape. An event with long shadows that...

This comedy is by Gilbert on his own without Sullivan. "Listen to me. You love this girl?" "I love her sir, a'most as weel as I love mysel' !" "Then reflect how you are standing in the way of her prosperity." "Sir, I'm puir on pocket, but I've a...

Tom Cobb: "Why, there's a squalid old pauper idiot, a patient of his, who's got no name of his own, and Whipple [Doctor] christened him "Tom Cobb", because he says he's the ugliest old lunatic he ever saw and reminds him of me. And all the boys in...

LibriVox volunteers bring you 21 recordings of The Magnet and The Churn by W. S. Gilbert. This was the Weekly Poetry project for April 26, 2020. ------ A bit of frivolity in these trying times. This Weekly Poem is taken from Bab Ballads and Savoy...

In typical Gilbert and Sullivan "Topsy Turvy" style, the King of Barataria has gone missing! He was stolen as a baby and raised in secrecy as one of two gondoliers (nobody knows which) and his wife would like very much to know where he is! The Grand...

Alexis Pointdextre gets his family sorcerer to brew up a love potion. But what happens when it gets out of control? This two act operetta was a success and convinced Gilbert and Sullivan (sorry - no music in our recording of this) to go ahead and...

Subtitled "An Original Dramatic Contrast", the play presents two neighbors, Harry and Jenny, parting in Act 1 and then meeting again 30 years later in Act 2 after Harry's return from India. - Summary by ToddHW Cast list: Mr Harry Spreadbrow: Rob...