PRINCESS IDA Finborough Theatre

If you want to know why Arthur Sullivan, recently knighted, should want to end one of the most successful musical partnerships ever, you have only to see Phil Willmott’s revival of Gilbert and Sullivan’s opera to know why. The score is pleasant enough; but Gilbert’s satire on feminism, women’s education and Darwinism, already long out of date in 1884, is absolutely dire. The singers are accompanied by two pianists. Simon Butteriss heads the cast.