The Mikado

I don't like many movies. Maybe most of the ones I decide I don't like are quite good but I'm fussy. Of the very few movies I do like I have a short list of favourites. Alice in Wonderland, Pride and Prejudice and the Mikado are an example. . Gilbert and Sullivan plays rank high on my extremely short list of movies. The Mikado is my favourite one so far. I like others, the HMS Pinafore, the Pirates of Penzance and the Gondoliers, but none rival my love of the Mikado. We have the Australian Opera version of the Mikado. Of the two versions I have seen the one we have is the one I like better. It's not exactly traditional. The costumes are not really Japanese and the words have been changed slightly but the actors make it worth watching over and over again. I have two favourite characters, Poo Bah and Koko. . Koko, the Lord High Executioner, is really funny. His costume is strange, odd for someone who used to be a tailor. I suppose he must have made it himself. He wears a prison suit and a strange baggy thing that looks like a cross between a dress and a very long shirt. It sort of gathers up at the back around his legs. It looks uncomfortable but always makes me laugh. Why a man would wear such a thing I don't know is beyond me. The dress/shirt things just makes Koko funnier. . Poo Bah, Lord High....well just about everything, is only that high ranking because all the other Lord Highs resigned when Koko became the executioner. He is followed almost all the time by his faithful servant Pish-tush. Poo bah must employ Pish-tush for one thing; he almost always carries a box with Poo bah's medals to show people. . I enjoy watching it but the fun doesn't stop with the movie. Recently we found a book filled with the words and music set for the piano for eleven Gilbert and Sullivan plays in the library. I like flipping through the music and dreaming of playing them. I have managed to play just about the whole of one piece on the piano but only through practise. My sight reading isn't that good so I can't just sit there and play. But when I have finished learning the first piece I can try the others.