While a student, I wrote a number of Gilbert & Sullivan-based shows for performance by Newcastle University Gilbert and Sullivan Society as their Summer Show. I was following a tradition initiated in the late 1970s, with such shows as 'Father Christmas', 'The Phantom of the Operetta' and 'The Demon Alcohol'. After a long break, I wrote 'Humbug!', a musical adaptation of Dickens' 'A Christmas Carol', in 2010, followed by 'Happy Arcadia', an adaptation of a WS Gilbert operetta for which the music has been lost, and 'The Chimes of Christmas', based on the the Charles Dickens' novella 'The Chimes'.

They all use songs from Gilbert and Sullivan, and Sullivan-with-others, and vary between being completely unaltered to completely rewritten. I have used lots of songs from many Savoy Operas, and rarely than once (can you spot them?) They are not high art, but easy-to-produce shows which, I belive, provide a much more satisfying experience than a concert, and have been written to require simple staging and minimal rehearsal.

As well as short synopses, I've decided to make all my scripts available for downloading on the appropriate pages - enjoy!

All apart from 'The Chimes' have received multiple stagings around the world (see the Productions page). If your society would like to perform one, the only fee is a copy of the poster, programme and DVD/video of the show. I can supply piano vocal scores for all of them, too! E-mail me at fraser.charlton@ncl.ac.uk for more information.

I have also co-written a comic play, 'The Adventures of Stoke Mandeville, Astronaut and Gentleman' with Nikolas Lloyd. This has been performed in Newcastle, Cambridge and at the Edinburgh Fringe, where it was very favourably reviewed. Read all about it here.