This involves Detective Pierrot (geddit?) travelling on a train and being asked to solve the destruction of the Doyly Carte, without which how can high tea be served? Matthew Kellett plays Pierrot, and all other characters are played by Catrine Kirkman and Matthew Siveter. They’re everything they should be. Experienced G&S performers all, they sing their hearts out.

Near the start, “Three Little Maids”, with new words, is sung by all three actors, and “I’ve Got a Little List” is peopled with G&S characters, but Kirkman sings “A Policeman’s Lot” and “The Sun and I” with Gilbert’s original words.

At 75 minutes with no interval, this show is very nearly a tiny gem. Just occasionally, the pace seems to slacken, maybe because the dialogue between the songs isn’t quite up to the songs themselves, maybe because when new words are put into a G&S song, they are generally not a patch on the original. 

From time to time the company seems deliberately to tease the audience, providing dialogue that looks to lead up to a much-loved song, then veering away from it at the last moment. I felt cheated out of “Oh! a Private Buffoon is a Light-Hearted Loon”, and I could have done with a few more of the great patter songs – “the Major General’s song”, or the “Judge’s song” from Trial by Jury.