History Theatre / TheMikado

%%%* VillainSong: "A More Humane Mikado", and for Katisha, "Your Revels Cease".

** The list in "I've Got a Little List" isn't really that little. This is sometimes {{parod|y}}ied by having it reach the floor when unrolled.

* GrandeDame: Katisha.

** Just about all of the names.

* InsaneTrollLogic: How the crisis is averted in the end.

* ItGetsEasier: Parodied when Ko-Ko announces that he ''can't'' execute a human being just yet; he'd planned on starting with a guinea pig and killing progressively larger, more intelligent animals until he got there.
* JudgeJuryAndExecutioner: Technically, Ko-Ko, although he's upstaged by Pooh-Bah who is the "Lord High Everything Else."

** The Mikado actually says, "That's the slovenly way in which these Acts are always drawn. However, cheer up, it'll be all right. I'll have it altered next session. Now, let's see about your execution will after luncheon suit you? Can you wait till then?" (Implying that Japan has a Parliament, which is in keeping with all of Poo-Bah's British-style state titles.)

* LoopholeAbuse: Flirting was made a capital offense, but everyone tries to find a way around that. Notably, this explains how Ko-Ko became Lord High Executioner: He was promoted to the post after being sentenced to death, but since he can't cut off his own head, and since nobody else can be executed until he is, everyone is free to indulge in flirting!

* MetaphoricallyTrue: This resolves the conflict at the end (with a heaping accompaniment of InsaneTrollLogic) when the characters are able to convince the Mikado that, since his word is law, anyone who the Mikado says should be executed is "as good as dead," never mind that they're still alive.

* OffWithHisHead: Ko-Ko's job duties, although he never actually performs them. Discussed in several songs as well, including "I Am So Proud" and "The Criminal Cried."

* {{Pride}}: Pooh-Bah accuses himself of this because of his BlueBlood.
* PunnyName
* RebelPrince: Nanki-Poo, who rejects life at the royal court in favor of wandering around disguised as a minstrel.
* RunawayFiance: the male version.

* TenorBoy: Nanki-Poo

* TomboyAndGirlyGirl: In some productions of ''The Mikado'' Pitti-Sing is played as a tomboy to Yum-Yum's Girly Girl.

* VillainSong: "A More Humane Mikado", and for Katisha, "Your Revels Cease".
* WanderingMinstrel: Nanki-Poo's disguise
** Lampshaded in the song "A Wand'ring Minstrel I."

* AbhorrentAdmirer: Katisha for Nanki-Poo

* BlackComedy

* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: Pooh Bah.
* CoolAndUnusualPunishment: "A More Humane Mikado" is made of this.

* DrivenToSuicide: Nanki-Poo attempts to off himself when he thinks he can't marry Yum-Yum, but Ko-Ko has other ideas...
* EitherOrTitle: As is typical of G&S operettas.

** The Mikado and Katisha are a bass and a contralto, respectively.

** A recent version with Alistair [=McGowan=] rhymed Mikado with the supermarket chain Ocado.

** In the recent Australian Opera production:

* LoveTriangle: Ko-Ko, Yum-Yum and Nanki-Poo.

[[folder:N-Z]]

* AffablyEvil: The Mikado, who is rather calm when he threatens to boil his son's supposed killers in oil.

* VillainSong: "A More Humane Mikado".

** Peep-Bo and Pitti-Sing, the second and third of the "three little maids from school"; and Pish-Tush, who is not so much a character as a singing part.

* ThePiratesWhoDontDoAnything: Ko-Ko is the Lord High Executioner, but never executes anybody.

* GettingCrapPastTheRadar: Satirising British society was tricky when (just as happens today) anything seriously cutting raised public controversy (''Theatre/TheSorcerer'' got a lot of complaints for mocking the church even mildly). Gilbert got around that by setting the story at least notionally in Japan. It just happens to be a Japan with a British political system, British nobility and a very British sense of etiquette...

** Just about all of the names, some of which seem to combine this with GettingCrapPastTheRadar.

** When they say Pooh-Bah is "Lord High Everything Else," they mean it.[[note]]First Lord of the Treasury, Lord Chief Justice, Commander-in-Chief, Lord High Admiral, Master of the Hounds, Groom of the Back Stairs, Archbishop of Titipu, Lord Mayor (both acting and elect), Lord Chamberlain, Attorney General, Chancellor of the Exchequer, Privy Purse, Private Secretary (to Ko-Ko), Solicitor (for Ko-Ko, again), Leader of the Opposition, Paymaster General, Lord High Auditor, First (or Chief) Commissioner of Police, Secretary of State for the Home Department ''[[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking and]]'' the Registrar.[[/note]]

* TheChewToy: Ko-Ko.

* TranslationYes: In the children's book version of the story adapted by Gilbert, he explains that Yum-Yum's name supposedly translates as, [[NameThatUnfoldsLikeALotusBlossom "The full moon of delight which sheds her remarkable beams over a sea of infinite loveliness, thus indicating a glittering path by which she may be approached by those who are willing to brave the perils which necessarily await the daring adventurers who seek to reach her by those means."]] He goes on to explain that the Japanese language is remarkably compact.[[note]]While he is [[TruthInTelevision quite correct about this]], it's not quite ''[[UpToEleven that]]'' compact.[[/note]]

* TranslationYes: In the children's book version of the story adapted by Gilbert, he explains that Yum-Yum's name supposedly translates as, "The full moon of delight which sheds her remarkable beams over a sea of infinite loveliness, thus indicating a glittering path by which she may be approached by those who are willing to brave the perils which necessarily await the daring adventurers who seek to reach her by those means." He goes on to explain that the Japanese language is remarkably compact.[[note]]While he is [[TruthInTelevision quite correct about this]], it's not quite ''[[UpToEleven that]]'' compact.[[/note]]

One of the most famous, if not ''the most-famous'' work by Creator/GilbertAndSullivan, ''The Mikado, or, the Town of Titipu'' opened in 1885. The [[MakingTheMasterpiece story of its conception]] was dramatized in the 1999 film ''Film/TopsyTurvy''.

** One technique is to eschew makeup entirely and simply have them dressed is Japanese characters.

* TheThemeParkVersion: Of Japanese culture. Of course, even the opening chorus cheerfully acknowledges that it is not intended to be realistic but is drawn from what can be seen "On many a vase and jar / On many a screen and fan."

** Pooh-Bah, likewise, is usually cast as a bass or a baritone.

* MostWritersAreMale: An item on Ko-Ko's list is "That singular anomaly, the lady novelist."
** In subsequent productions, this became "the prohibitionist" and "the scorching motorist".

In a quite fictionalized version of Japan, Nanki-Poo, the son of the Mikado (the Emperor), wanders the streets as a WanderingMinstrel. Meanwhile, a hapless tailor named Ko-Ko has been saved from the chopping block and appointed High Executioner. Instructed to execute ''somebody'' before The Mikado returns, Ko-Ko happens upon Nanki-Poo, who is in love with the maiden Yum-Yum, and contemplating suicide because she's due to marry another. Seeing an opportunity, Ko-Ko decides to help Nanki-Poo have his death wish and to be with Yum-Yum. HilarityEnsues.

** The "nigger serenader and the others of his race" in Ko-Ko's list song do not refer to a desire for genocide, but rather that if blackface minstrels and similar types of entertainers disappeared, the world would be a slightly better place. Actual performers of colour weren't a thing in middle-class circles until TheTwenties.