''The Red Pen'' is a two-act

operetta Operetta is a form of theatre and a genre of light opera. It includes spoken dialogue, songs, and dances. It is lighter than opera in terms of its music, orchestral size, length of the work, and at face value, subject matter. Apart from its s ...

and early radio opera composed by

Geoffrey Toye Edward Geoffrey Toye (17 February 1889 – 11 June 1942), known as Geoffrey Toye, was an English conductor, composer and opera producer. He is best remembered as a musical director of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company and for his association wit ...

to a libretto by A. P. Herbert. The piece, described by its creators as "a sort of opera" was written for the BBC, following Herbert's successful ''Riverside Nights'', and had a running time of about 90 minutes.''The Times'', 7 February 1927, p. 4 It was first broadcast on the radio on 24 March 1925."Broadcasting", '' The Times'', 20 March 1925, p. 6 It was broadcast again in 1927.

Roles

The performers for the second broadcast were Gladys Palmer, Vivienne Chatterton, John Buckley, Harold Kimberley, John Tanner, and

Sydney Granville Sydney Granville (born Walter Dewhurst; 1880 – 27 December 1959) was an English singer and actor, best known for his performances in the Savoy Operas with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company. After early theatrical work in musical comedy, straight ...

. The composer conducted the Wireless Orchestra.

Synopsis

The first act is set in

Hyde Park Hyde Park may refer to: Places England * Hyde Park, London, a Royal Park in Central London * Hyde Park, Leeds, an inner-city area of north-west Leeds * Hyde Park, Sheffield, district of Sheffield * Hyde Park, in Hyde, Greater Manchester Austra ...

and the second in the Ministry of Verse at

St. James's Park St James's Park is a park in the City of Westminster, central London. It is at the southernmost tip of the St James's area, which was named after a leper hospital dedicated to St James the Less. It is the most easterly of a near-continuous ch ...

. The story is set "in the near future" (the late 1920s), and opens with the whimsical premise that the "General Federation of Poets and Writers", a trade-union for authors, is agitating for the nationalisation of their industry. "The Red Pen", from which the play takes its title, is their march, a play on '' The Red Flag''. In Act II, set six months later, the newly established Ministry of Verse is run in a comically bureaucratic civil service style.

References

*Jacobs, Arthur (1992), 'Toye, Geoffrey' in ''The

New Grove Dictionary of Opera ''The New Grove Dictionary of Opera'' is an encyclopedia of opera, considered to be one of the best general reference sources on the subject. It is the largest work on opera in English, and in its printed form, amounts to 5,448 pages in four volu ...

'', ed. Stanley Sadie (London) {{DEFAULTSORT:Red Pen English-language operettas Radio operas 1927 operas Operas by Geoffrey Toye Operas Operas set in London