Sir, I disagree that Gilbert’s humour was on a par with Punch cartoons (letter, June 23). When I became a devotee of the operas aged 11 in the 1950s I had access to old volumes of Punch, and found them baffling and laboured. Not so Gilbert’s humour, but it needed the acting skills of the likes of Kenneth Sandford, with D’Oyly Carte from 1957 to 1982. His interpretations of Gilbert’s eccentric characters put him up there with Gielgud and Richardson. And he could sing. There were many others, too, who through their skills and experience brought the songs and dialogue across the generation gap and into the modern age.
James Lewis
Wembley, Middx