Illyria

Gilbert and Sullivan’s glorious all-out spoof of both melodrama and the classic haunted-house story. Set in the town of Rederring in Cornwall, Rose Maybud, a prim student of etiquette, loves Robin Oakapple, a shy young farmer. Eventually he summons the courage to ask for her hand in marriage. But at the wedding it is revealed that Robin is really Sir Ruthven Murgatroyd, heir to the ancestral pile of Ruddigore and its attendant curse: that each Lord of Ruddigore must do an evil deed, every day, or else die an agonising death. Rose is horrified and offers herself in marriage to his younger brother. But how will Robin/Sir Ruthven win her back? Can he avoid perpetrating crimes on a daily basis? When an army of long-dead ancestors emerge from dusty portraits to demand his death might there be some kind of loophole by which he could dodge the terms of the curse and marry the girl of his dreams?