Amazon sale:
No, this isn’t an advertisement as such. Both the US and UK versions of Amazon are running DVD sales, and I’m listing out my ooh-that-would-be-interesting list for my purposes (and your edification, in case you have similar interests).
Note that I have multi-region / NTSC and PAL reading DVD players in the house, and that the UK PAL stuff won’t be ( Read more... )
Its plot was intended as a silly joke, written by the editor of _Punch_, F. C. Burnand; with music by one of England's brightest young song writers (and composer of growing repute), Dr Arthur Sullivan. It was performed as a curtain-raiser to the evening's main entertainment. Kind of like a Bugs Bunny cartoon. Of course its plot is unlikely -- one absurdity piled on another.
The plot's conflict is resolved when Cox and Box's mutual fiancee decides to marry a Mr Knox instead. Both relieved of the burden of marrying this high-maintenance lady, they decide they like each other better than her. Whether they really are long lost brothers doesn't matter. It is one more absurdity on top of her deus ex machina engagement. And I take that not so much as coincidence as an inference that she has some bizarre fixation with men whose name ends with "ox". The whole thing is good for the songs and a few laughs. It'd have been totally forgotten 100 years ago if not for Gilbert & Sullivan -- even though Gilbert had nothing to do with the show!
_Trial by Jury_ is another matter. Its libretto is head and shoulders over _Cox & Box_, and deserves to be remembered as the true beginning of the G&S partnership.
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