Ages Ago

The piece was a critical and popular success and was revived many times, including at St. George's Hall, London in 1870 and 1874, and in New York in 1880.

Shakespeare's plays were staged, but most of the entertainments consisted of poorly translated French operettas, risque Victorian burlesques and vulgar broad farces.

[1] To bring family-friendly entertainment back to the theatre, Thomas German Reed and his wife Priscilla opened their Gallery of Illustration in 1855 and brought in Gilbert in 1869 as one of their many playwrights.

Ages Ago, with its double-layered plot and its complex relationships among the characters, is more sophisticated than No Cards, which was a simple farce.

[2] Ages Ago earned praise from the critics, outran its companion piece, the popular Cox and Box, and was frequently revived over the next decade.

[3][4] A review in the Penny Illustrated Paper described the piece as "a very brilliant, sparkling operetta, full of ingenious fun in the plot and dialogue, and exhibiting a good deal of grace and freshness in the music.

[6] New York's reopened Broadway Opera House was inaugurated in 1880 with a double bill of Ages Ago and Charity Begins at Home.

Being the type of a Victorian money-grubbing elderly relative, he refuses to let his niece Rosa marry her poor suitor, Columbus Hebblethwaite, who is staying for the night.

Lady Maude finds more in common with Sir Cecil Blount, painted in the 16th century by Michelangelo at age 20.