Captain Billy

[6] When the Gilbert and Sullivan partnership disbanded after the production of The Gondoliers in 1889, impresario Richard D'Oyly Carte needed new works to fill the Savoy Theatre.

The fashion in the late Victorian era was to present long evenings in the theatre, and so producer Richard D'Oyly Carte preceded his Savoy operas with curtain raisers.

Greenbank, on the other hand, was a new writer who would go on to a very productive and successful career writing lyrics for hit musicals, although he lived to the age of only 33.

A young foundling, Christopher Jolly, visits the village to examine the parish register in an attempt to find his birth certificate; he does not know his own age.

Jolly falls in love with Polly, and they exchange this dialogue: Billy returns to the village on the same day and is recognised by his brother Samuel Chunk.