1997 saw the fourth production of Pirates by the Players and its perennial popularity saw full houses for the week's performances.

Since the 1996 production of La Vie Parisienne a number of the Players had been to the 3^rd International Gilbert & Sullivan Festival in Philadelphia and Buxton as members of an amateur chorus behind professional principals. We were invited to take our production of Pirates to the 4^th Festival in Buxton and did so, having a most enjoyable time and winning a prize to boot.

On a rocky Cornish shore a band of pirates celebrate the coming-of-age of the young pirate Frederic. He tells them however his becoming a pirate apprentice was an error due to his former nursemaid Ruth’s poor hearing. Frederic has conscientiously performed his duty as an apprentice but, while acknowledging the warmth of feeling of his comrades, now feels obligated to exterminate them. The pirates reject his plea for them to give up their piratical way of life and leave Frederic on the beach with Ruth, who sees in Frederic her last chance of marriage.

Her plans are destroyed by the arrival of a group of young women, the daughters of a major-general, who come to the beach to paddle and picnic. Frederic immediately falls in love with Mabel, then warns the daughters that the pirate band could return at any time and they should leave. Before the daughters can depart, the pirates re-appear and seize the girls as their brides. The General arrives and strongly objects to having pirates as sons-in-law. The pirates are however unmoved by his objections until the General, knowing the pirates’ Achilles heel, claims to be an orphan. By the pirates’ rules this makes him and his family inviolate and they are released. Ruth’s advances to Frederic are again spurned and he leaves with Mabel.

The opening of Act 2 discovers the General being comforted by his daughters. He is no orphan and is tormented by his guilty conscience after lying to the pirates. Frederic recruits the local police to assist him in exterminating his former comrades and presents them to his prospective father-in-law for his blessing. The police are not overly enthusiastic about the prospects of success but nonetheless depart to do their duty. Frederic is about to follow when he is waylaid by the Pirate King and Ruth, who relate to him a curious paradox: although Frederic has lived 21 years, he was born on 29 February and therefore, going by birthdays, he is only "five and a little bit over". His former colleagues point out that he was apprenticed to the Pirate King until his 21st birthday, and Frederic’s sense of duty compels him to leave Mabel, abandon the police and return to the pirate lair.

He also feels obliged to tell his comrades that the General lied to them when he claimed to be an orphan. Outraged and seeking vengeance, the pirates launch an immediate attack on the General’s estate. They capture and are preparing to kill him when the police make their belated appearance. In the ensuing fight the pirates swiftly overcome the police but are halted in their tracks when the Sergeant demands in the Queen’s name that they yield at once. Loyal to the Queen, the pirates humbly obey and are about to be taken to jail when Ruth reveals that they are not quite what they seem, and are all errant members of the nobility. The General promptly waives all objection to them marrying his daughters providing they give up their piratical habits…

 MAJOR-GENERAL STANLEY'S DAUGHTERS and CHAPERONES

Pauline Brimble, Anne Charleston, Josie Childs, Gwenneth Clarke, Sue Crewe, Malveena Crosse, Christine Farhan, Ethne Goode, Gill Himan, Jo Holroyd, Gill Horton, Christl Hughes, Christine Jaques-Davis, Siobhan Jennings, Patricia Johnson, Carole Moore, Fiona Nicholls, Helen Rae, Sarah Robinson, Clare Townend.

Ron Billings, John Bingham, Ken Bradley, Alan Bullas, Peter Charleston, Tim Clarke, Philip de Voil, Alan Gale, Keith Goode, Roy Halford, Trevor Harvey, Ray Kendrick, Paul Nicholls, Ron Smith, Richard Smithson, Ian White, Frank Williams.