The Challenge

I don't know anything about Gilbert and Sullivan. Not one little thing. I don't know anything about the music, what they did, who they were. So most of this post is going to be comprised of me, talking about all the ways in which I know absolutely nothing about Gilbert and Sullivan.

Literally - I'm not going to consult Wikipedia. I'm not going to read any books. I'm just going to go on the miniscule amount of information rattling around inside the dusty confines of my head - like a challenge! Can she do it? Can she do a whole post on Gilbert and Sullivan while knowing almost nothing about Gilbert and Sullivan?

I mean, here's what I've got to go on:

1. The episode of Frasier where some practical jokers make Frasier sing Three Little Maids in a squeaky girl's voice.

2. A film I can dimly remember seeing with Jim Broadbent.

3. Something about geishas.

So at best, it seems unlikely that I'm going to manage this. I failed last week at writing a post about last words cos I forgot what a fellow Gripper had said five minutes ago, so the chances seem as slim as Armie Hammer agreeing to have a threesome with me and Michael Fassbender.*

But I'm going to try. It can't be that hard. I mean, that song Frasier sung sounded great. I especially like the part about being filled to the brim with girlish glee, because it is so often a state I find myself in. When Game of Thrones comes on, and characters say things like "I milked my eel and put it in some turtle soup" I am filled with such girlish glee that I'm like to explode.

I also start talking in medieval, too, using such terms as "I am like to", "be gone you churl" and "come service me, wench". Of course, the wench in this equation is six foot five with a beard, but you get the general gist.

But back to Gilbert and Sullivan. Where was I? Ah yes: the thing I can dimly remember with Jim Broadbent in it. Though I've got to say, the thing I can remember gives me hardly anything to go on. All I can see when I close my eyes is some woman who I think was in that other Mike Leigh film, crying because she wants a baby. And then Gilbert (or is it Sullivan?) gets all weird about it and shouts or maybe just looks sad, which I'm sure has almost nothing to do with the things he composed.

I'm almost deathly certain that they never wrote a musical entitled: "I Was In That Other Mike Leigh Film", or even worse: "I Wanted A Baby, You Bastard". If they had, I'm sure they'd be a good deal less popular. Though in truth, I'm not even sure if it was musicals they wrote. It could have been depressing dramas about kitchen sinks and crying over babies and husbands, for all I know.

Which leads me to the last glimmer of information I have about Gilbert and Sullivan. The thing about geishas. Did they do a musical about geishas? It was called something like the name of them chocolate biscuits, wasn't it - Mikados. Which only leads me to believe that the musical features many songs about delicious sticks of crunchy stuff covered in milk chocolate.

And for this, I am very grateful. Not enough people write musicals about delicious treats. This certainly says to me that they were geniuses, way ahead of their time, haters were pressed and ugly, etc.

Even if I do know almost nothing about them.

P.S. My zombie novel featuring people battling the apocalypse by way of hot threesomes is out on Wednesday! If you are not too enraged by my completely tongue in cheek lack of Gilbert and Sullivan knowledge (I know that the Mikado is not about choc biscuits, I promise!), maybe you could check it out, here?

http://www.resplendencepublishing.com/m8/318-201-107-490-1--reawakening-forever-dead-series-book-one-by-charlotte-stein.html






*I did not use Michael Fassbender at the start of this simile, because as we all know the chances of Michael Fassbender agreeing to a threesome with me and Armie Hammer are not slim. I'm quite certain, in fact, that he'd be willing to have a threesome with _____ and _____. You could probably put "goat" and "the Queen Mum" in those two blank spaces, and he'd still be up for it. Despite the fact that the Queen Mum has been dead for a number of years.