Regarding Sir Jonathan Miller

Today, I'm going to write about something which the theatre director and Jack of all trades Sir Jonathan Miller said about Gilbert and Sullivan last year. "I've never had anything but contempt for Gilbert and Sullivan," he said in a documentary. "It's simply UKIP set to music."

For those who do not know, UKIP is a fringe political party in the UK which exists mainly in order to campaign, in defiance of all practical possibility, in favour of the UK's independence from Europe. It is generally "Little-England," right wing, and hyper-"patriotic." Hardly anyone takes it seriously.

Sir Jonathan Miller's opinion appears to have been made in ignorance of the nature of Gilbert and Sullivan. While it is true that the operas are very concerned with notions of Englishness and Britishness, the material in which this concern is expressed tends to be sarcastic and satirical in intent. Famously, the song "He is an Englishman" from HMS Pinafore is a satire on pastriotism:

For he himself has said it,

And it's greatly to his credit

That he is an Englishman!

(Chorus: That he is an Englishman!)

For he might have been a Roosian,

A French or Turk or Proosian

Or perhaps I-tal-i-an!

(Chorus: Or perhaps I-tal-i-an!)

But in spite of all temptations

To belong to other nations

He remains an Englishman,

He rema-ains an E-englishman!

When Gilbert retold the story of HMS Pinafore for children late in his life, he helpfully explained the joke of this lyric in fairly plain terms: "Speaking for myself, I do not quite see that Ralph Rackstraw deserved so very much credit for reemaining an Englishman, considering that no one seems ever to have proposed to him that he should be anything else, but the crew thought otherwise and I daresay they were right."

As a general rule, whenever a character in G&S becomes patriotic, it is a signal that something heavily sarcastic is taking place. Dick Dauntless's song "I shipped, d'ye see, in a Revenue sloop" from Ruddigore is another example: the jingoistic veneer conceals a tale of English cowardice in the face of the enemy. I may add in passing that Utopia, Limited is a consistently jaundiced parable on the theme of the English assumption of superiority over other nations.

I will briefly point out that Gilbert's contemporaries recognised this aspect of his writings very well, even though they usually did not approve. The cartoonist Arthur Bryan, depicting Gilbert in a page-size collection of sketches called "Days with Celebrities: Mr W.S. Gilbert" (Moonshine, 1882), showed Gilbert arguing with John Bull and growling, "Why are you such a humbug?" while John Bull asks, "Why are you always attacking my institutions?"

Why does Sir Jonathan Miller have such a poor opinion of G&S? Perhaps his contact with The Mikado has soured him. The Mikado is not everyone's cup of tea; it is relatively straightforward and seemingly simple; its plot is simple and its attitudes are not overtly taxing. He might have understood Ruddigore better, with its quirkiness, sour cynicism, tricksiness, and peculiar storyline. He seems to have taken no effort to try and understand Gilbert's point of view, or even to take on board his ironic and sarcastic style. It is as if one took all the attitudes in Beyond the Fringe at face value.