Gilbert & Sullivan's wildly popular musical operetta, H.M.S. Pinafore, throws the centuries-old English social pecking order out the window! On board the Pinafore, the Captain's daughter, Josephine, is in love with a lower-class sailor, a lowly British tar named Ralph Rackstraw who fervently returns her love. Her father, however, intends her to marry Sir Joseph Porter, the First Lord of the Admiralty. She abides by her father's wishes at first, but Sir Joseph's advocacy that any man is every man's equal (excepting his, of course) encourages Ralph and Josephine to overturn conventional social order. They declare their love for each other and plot to elope. The Captain discovers their plan, but, as in many of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas, a surprise disclosure changes things dramatically near the end of the story.

Today, almost 145 years after it was written, we can still easily relate to Gilbert & Sullivan's comic send-up of Britain's 19th century preoccupation with social status. The musical gleefully lampoons not only a successful politician whose rise in power (owed to family money and station) flies in the face of his obvious incompetence, but a father who would see his daughter married to such an one! Rejoice that Gilbert's clever wit awaits you, neatly wrapped up in Sullivan's toe-tapping music.