We are mainly known as a Gilbert and Sullivan company, performing award-winning productions of the well-loved comic operas, but we put on non-G&S shows as well. In the Company’s early years other comic operas – mostly now lost in the mists of obscurity – were produced, including Les Cloches de Corneville (about a French miser), Tom Jones (an operetta by Edward German, the composer widely regarded as Sullivan’s successor, based on the 17th century novel of the same name), The Rebel Maid (the adventures of an aristocratic supporter of William of Orange in the 15th century) and Merrie England, another Edward German piece last performed by HLO as a concert in 1994.
More recently we’ve varied the G&S with Broadway/West End musicals. In October 2015 we presented the UK premiere of The Pirate Queen, from the same people who brought you Les Miserables and Miss Saigon: Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schonberg. In March 2016 we performed Godspell which, until Wicked came along, was Stephen Schwartz’s best-known musical. We’ve also taken on Little Shop of Horrors, The Pajama Game, Cole Porter’s Anything Goes (twice) and another Stephen Schwartz show, The Baker’s Wife.