Welcome to the 1983 production of
HMS Pinafore
Preceded by Trial by Jury

Synopsis

HMS Pinafore is lying at anchor outside Portsmouth Harbor, where the crew are preparing for a visit by the First Lord of the Admiralty, Sir Joseph Porter K.C.B. who always travels with an admiring bevy of sisters, cousins and aunts.
Little Buttercup, a Portsmouth bumboat woman, comes on deck to sell her wares
and sees Ralph Rackstraw, an able seaman, who is down cast because he has dared
to fall in love with Josephine, his Captain's daughter, who is much above his station.

Ralph is warned by the Boatswain that Josephine will have nothing to do with him because he is only a foremast hand.

Meanwhile, the Captain of the Pinafore, Captain Corcoran, is hopeful that his daughter, Josehpine, will marry Sir Joseph but she is secretly in love with Ralph Rackstraw. The lovers decide to elope, assisted by the crew and the sisters, cousins and aunts, but are foiled through Dick Deadeye, who has discovered the plot and tells the Captain.

When Sir Joseph has had Rackstraw loaded with chains and taken to the dungeon, Buttercup confesses that many years ago she practiced baby-farming and mixed up two babies, so in fact it turns out that Ralph is of aristocratic birth and Corcoran came from humble parentage.

Ralph, therefore, becomes captain of the Pinafore and is able to marry Josephine, Corcoran becomes a common sailor and marries Buttercup, Sir Joseph marries Hebe, and everyone lives happily ever after.