Ruddigore is Gilbert and Sullivan’s parody of Victorian melodrama, traditionally set in the Regency Period, decades before Gilbert and Sullivan’s time.  Director Joe Andrews set the company’s cancelled 2020 and remounted 2022 productions of Ruddigore decades before our time, as a 1940s film from the golden age of cinema, with opening film credits and quotes from classic films of the period included in the dialogue.

The experience for the audience was that of being in a movie theater of the period, with costumed ushers and advertisements shown on the screen before the “film.”  The ads were created by Joe Andrews, Kate Boud, Stephen Hage, Scott Stivers and Holly Windle, and were a collection of ads for real products, modified to include Gilbert and Sullivan quotes and references, and ads created to advertise imaginary Gilbert and Sullivan products and services.