The Critic Profile W.S. Gilbert

A wildly funny and slyly subversive comic genius who deftly skewered the mores of Victorian England

Alexander Larman

“Though the Philistines may jostle,You will rank as an apostleIn the high aesthetic band,If you walk down PiccadillyWith a poppy or a lilyIn your medieval hand.” —W.S. Gilbert, “If you’re anxious for to shine”, from Patience, 1881 POSTMANS’S PARK, THE PUBLIC GARDEN a short walk from St Paul’s Cathedral, was immortalised by the play Closer (and its subsequent film adaptation) as the site of ordinary people remembered for acts of heroism that cost them their lives. The Memorial to Heroic Self-Sacrifice, as it is known, commemorates those who died in a variety of ways in attempts, whether successful or in vain, to save others. The idea was that of the painter and sculptor G.F. Watts, who wished to commemorate the valiant deeds of ordinary people who might otherwise have been…

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The Critic (Digital) - 1 Issue, April 2024

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