Putting a little more bounce into Gilbert & Sullivan is the aim of this year’s Scarborough summer season

THE summer season of new work at Stephen Joseph Theatre, in Scarborough, continues with a musical game of two halves as Sir Arthur Sullivan’s one-ct comic opera Cox & Box is reinvented with a new second act Boks & Cocks.

The year is 1866. Mr Cox is a hatter who works by day, Mr Box is a printer who works by night. Thanks to some quick changes by landlady Mrs Bouncer, the two unknowingly share the same room. That’s Cox & Box.

The year is 2016. The government has repatriated all migrant workers. Twin sisters Urszula and Krystyna secretly share a room in a rundown B&B but it can only be a matter of time before unscrupulous landlord Bob Narks finds out. That’s Boks & Cocks.

SJT’s artistic director Chris Monks has always admired Cox & Box which has Sullivan’s music married to the book and lyrics of F C Burnand, then editor of Punch magazine.

“It’s a really well-crafted libretto and you can see where Gilbert and Sullivan came from. Cox & Box is the start of Gilbert and Sullivan – although Sullivan didn’t know it at the time,” says Monks. “There are some really good tunes in Cox & Box that appear in a piece called Pineapple Poll, which was a ballet made of Sullivan’s music. They could do with more exposure. The problem is that Cox & Box is only an hour long, so I hit on the idea of a sequel, visiting Bouncer’s boarding house to see who,would be living there 150 years later.

“It all started really with my partner who’s an actress and was resting. She took a job doing the census, going round all these bedsits in Scarborough. There were an awful lot of Polish people living in really dodgy digs.

So I imagined two Polish sisters living in this room. The twist is that because they’re twins the landlord doesn’t realise there are two people living there.”

Composer and musical director Richard Atkinson has written the music for the second piece in musical theatre style but influenced by Gilbert & Sullivan. “We’ll be bringing all the comic elements, sparkling melodies and farcical qualities associated with the original into our companion piece but more in keeping with modern musical theatre,” he explains.

Actor Paul Ryan, seen as Harry in Mamma Mia in the West End and previously at the SJT in The Importance Of Being Earnest and Cinderella in 2012, returns as Mrs Bouncer and Bob Narks. He performs alongside Lara Stubbs and Charlotte Harwood who will perform for the first time with the SJT.

  • Cox & Box: Mrs Bouncer’s Legacy: Scarborough Stephen Joseph Theatre, July 3 to Aug 30. Box office 01723-370541 and sjt.uk.com