TRIAL BY JURY

The latest from our legal affairs editor:

CUPID IN THE COURTROOM

Judge to Wed Pretty Plaintiff

In the Court of the Exchequer today, there was an unexpected ending to the story of a broken romance.  Principal figures in this unusual episode, in which an alleged breach of promise was under review, were three in number.

The learned judge, raised from a humble and hungry place at the bar by a piece of flagrant jobbery, confessed that he once engaged himself to a maiden of uncertain age for the sake of the favours her lawyer father could put in his way.  The "impecunious party" quickly qualified to be the spokesman of wealthy crooks, and so threw the tough spinster overboard.  Thus he had first-hand experience of the sort of case he was about to try.

So to the second figure in the case - an amateur guitarist named Edwin.  He was a gay (As per the meaning of the word in 1955 - Ed.) young spark who had got himself into a pretty pickle by wanting more than one string to he bow, and so got his private affairs as mixed as our metaphor.  Third party was a well-turned-out number named Angelina, "victim" (as her counsel remarked feelingly) "of a heartless wile."

There was some confusion about the legal aspects pf the case.  Young Ted made a spot offer to marry Angelina today if he could marry someone else (and he seemed to have his eye on one of the bridesmaids) tomorrow.  Counsel quoted case law from the times of James the Second to prove that such a course would amount to burglary.  For his part, young Ted contented that anyway he would be a bad bargain because of his drinking habits.  The learned judge, a practical man of the world, wanted to put this to the test by sending out then and there for a few pints for young Ted.

Some objections were raised to this (though not by Ted) and it was while the court was wrangling over the proposition that a testy announcement by the learned judge electrified everyone.  He would marry the wench himself!

Angelina was cheerfully prepared to settle for the learned old crook, and pomp in a moated grange, and leave young Ted and his guitar to anyone who wanted them.  This met with Ted's approval and amid general rejoicings the court rose.

HMS PINAFORE

So to nautical Portsmouth, to meet first a "plump and pleasing person" named (though she can never tell why) Little Buttercup.  She may be oddly named but there is no doubt of her calling, for she is the NAAFI of her day.  We meet he as she comes aboard HMS Pinafore (master, Captain Corcoran) in Portsmouth harbour.  We meet also one Joe Porter, ex-office boy, who became in turn junior clerk, junior partner, Member of Parliament and First Lord of the Admiralty, whereupon he changed "Joe" to "Sir Joseph" and tacked on KCB.  But Sir Joseph is not alone.  He goes everywhere with a retinue of female relatives who minister to his ego and agree with him that the British tar is anyone's equal (except the First Lord's).

While Captain Corcoran is convinced that he has the best crew in the Royal Navy, he does not go all the way with Sir Joseph in this.  His daughter Josephine, "the fairest flower that ever blossomed on ancestral timber" as her lyrical parent remarks, has an equally acute sense of the gulf between the quarter-deck and the fo'csle.  So when young Ralph Rackstraw, a humble foremast hand, declares his love, Josephine crushes down her inclination to clutch him in a nautical half-Nelson, and reminds him coldly that he is "ignobly born".  This drives young Ralph to a farewell aria and as near as a toucher to suicide.  So Josephine ends his anguish and the first act by stopping his gunplay and falling into his arms.

There is one odd three-cornered character in this intrigue we should have introduced earlier. Dick Deadeye is nobody's idea of manly beauty - not even his own!  Through some choice allegory from Dick, Captain Corcoran discovers (he is a bit behind events, because even the audience knows all about it by now) that Josephine is about to jilt Sir Joseph and steal ashore to marry Ralph.  There's the devil to pa.  The Captain, having had high hopes of the First Sea Lord as a son-in-law, is furious, he who never (well, hardly ever) says anything stronger than "Bother" lets rip with "Damme."  And to show he means it, he says it three times.  This offends another of Sir Joseph's first principles, namely that the use of such language is "wholly indefensible."  Captain Corcoran is ordered to his cabin, and when Sir Joseph discovers that Ralph is his rival with Josephine, a convenient dungeon is found for Ralph.

At this stage Buttercup decides to get back into the act by confessing to a long concealed crime.  It seems that she once nursed two babies, one high-born, one humble.  For some reason (perhaps she foresaw the D'Oyly carte operas) she swapped them over.  Now this would not have mattered to anyone aboard the Pinafore but for one thing - one babe was Corcoran, the other Ralph Rackstraw.  No one sends out to Somerset House or dials Whitehall 1212; the situation is accepted.  Corcoran is reduced to the ranks and his Buttercup; Rackstraw dons a captain's uniform which might have been made for him (and probably was) and takes the now humble Josephine.  Sir Joseph makes a choice from among those in his retinue who are not barred by the rules of consanguinity - and so a triple match is in prospect.

And if you have worked all this out on the back of the programme and discovered that it puts Buttercup into the grandmother age bracket; that someone is marrying a man young enough to be her son and some else a man old enough to be her uncle ... well, not to worry.  It didn't really happen you know.