Richard D'Oyly Carte, the theatrical entrepreneur responsible for establishing and promoting what is arguably the most renowned partnership in British musical theatre, becomes the central figure in this study of Gilbert and Sullivan. Oost's pioneering approach concentrates on charting the development of a theatre brand within a consumer culture, rather than analysing theatre performance, working methods or compositional style. She explains how Carte hit on an ideal formula for a particular target audience and, in doing so, created a self-perpetuating brand affiliation, which endorsed the self-identification of late Victorian audiences as members of a commodity-centred, luxury-loving, money-spending, but ultimately respectable, middle class.

Oost's method is to establish relationships between the consumerist tendencies of the late Victorian bourgeoisie and cultural values contained within Gilbert's texts. Chapters locating the operation of the D'Oyly Carte company within contexts of class, business practice and commercialization of cultural product in the late nineteenth century inform a materialist critique of the operas in which the consumerist, class-obsessed world of the typical Savoy audience is reflected in a veneration of wealth, status and social stratification within the libretti, and is manifested physically via the ‘commodity fetishism’ of lavish stage sets and costumes.

Oost describes Carte's fashioning of a brand which endorsed the patriotic appeal of ‘English’ comic opera over foreign operetta, while creating a sense of customer loyalty based on a shared appreciation of attendance at the Savoy as an affirmation of class identity. ‘Knowing’ the operas, following the texts, collecting programmes and ephemera – in other words, becoming a fan or ‘Savoyard’ – perfectly matched the tastes and preoccupations of bourgeois audiences, while ensuring a steady revenue stream. Such ‘fandom’ provided devotees with the security of an unchanging focus in a rapidly shifting and increasingly urbanised world, creating a reliable and reputable Victorian brand which, ironically, continued into the late twentieth century.

Overall, this book presents a micro-historical study of material culture and its effect on audiences. As such, its scope could be wider. There is little attempt to locate Carte's tactics within broader contexts of Victorian entrepreneurship and the development and longevity of retail brands. The ‘invention’ of the D'Oyly Carte tradition is not placed within a context of other ‘invented’ traditions (coronation ceremonies, the manufactured customs of minor public schools, the kilt) which sought to validate Victorian ideals. Nevertheless, detailed coverage of specific areas, such as the use of theatre programmes and advertising in establishing brand identity, the social make-up of West End audiences and how tropes of ‘Englishness’ underlie the creation and popularity of the operas, makes this a valuable addition to the small but growing number of academic studies of the Gilbert and Sullivan phenomenon and its significance within the culture of Victorian Britain.