There's so much "baggage" attached to Gilbert & Sullivan that it's almost a disaster to your career to be even connected with it - but I will happily admit to being a fan of the material. 

What I have no interest at all in is all the stuff about who played who and said what and cut which line in 1957 in a performance of The Grand Duke in Bognor Regis

I think they are witty pieces that stand up well against Offenbach, and - dare I say it - are a bit more amusing than L'ELISIR D'AMORE.  There is quite a lot of lame stuff that gets treated "seriously" because it's by non-English composers... for example, Wolf-Ferrari's SCHOOL FOR FATHERS (which is worth leaving the country to avoid).

I have to say, I barely know RUDD(I/Y)GORE at all, except for the "Ghost's High Noon" chorus, a superb spoof of Weber, Marschner et al  

If G&S had only been German - how we should love them then!    DIE PIRATEN VON ROSTOCK...

I haven't listened to Ruddigore for years, and I don't think I have seen it.  The bits may be better than the whole, but gems include:

the tenor's entrance ballad, sending up Dibden, though how far anyone gets the joke in the words the first time round, I doubt.  (The jolly jack tars run away from a French ship, and say that proves their bravery and British pluck etc.)

the soubrette's entrance (Mad Margaret) is a rather touching ballad preceded by a substantial recit which is the only Mad Scene I can remember in G&S.

the contralto's ballad of the Curse of Ruddigore sends up the situation of Trovatore, and prepares for the mock horrors of the Ghost scene.

the patter trio in Act II is quite as exhilirating as the duet in Don Pasquale.

and the duet in Act II for the reformed Mad Margaret and bad baronet now they run a temperance mission is like nothing else.

It is the odd one out of the Savoy operas in that the hero was played by George Grossmith.  But I like the fact tenors don't always play the juv lead.  Good on you Tony.

Blimey, I will spare you the pics of myself as a Yeoman Warder in the late 1970's Some girl named Susan Bullock did alright for herself after appearing as Elsie, though

And the more I think of it, the less I agree that singing G&S can ruin a career. I've got a recording of The Yeomen of the Guard with Thomas Allen (then at the height of his career and he was very keen to do it) and Bryn Terfel (who was just starting to make a name for himself). Their reputations are still very much intact.

Fair enough. But that aspect of his reputation is not a consequence of his having sung the part of Wilfred Shadbolt. (He could always have said that he was young and he needed the money.)

He also sang in a performance of Verdi's Requiem for my local choral society, before he became famous.

Happy days, indeed MabelJane.  I have been a tone deaf member of the jury in Trial by J, and Ruth Elleson has certainly been one of Major Stanley's daughters at Buxton, but I'll leave her to tell the story herself.

As for the alleged Curse of G'n'S.

Thomas Allen sang Jack Point for Phillips (with Kurt Streit as the tenor) and Captain Corocan after he had made his name as Billy Budd, etc.  There is a worthy tradition of singers unbending with G'n'S after they had made their name elsewhere.  Anthony Rolfe Johnson as Nanki Poo, Allen as Captain Corcoran (with Micahel Schade as the tenor) and Mark John Ainsley as Frederick are all readily available.

I know that TOP has achieved some notoriety in some areas recently but the occasional gem can be found over there, like this comment by "calulham" in response to the broadcast of the Gondoliers overture a couple of days ago:

One of Sullivan's gifts was to make a small pit orchestra produce a rich texture redolent of much larger forces. Add to this his enthusiasm for Mozart and an unerring light touch and, for me at least, the magic is worked.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/mbradio3/F6643899?thread=5067150

I agree entirely. Sullivan always said that anyone wanting to learn orchestration would do well to look at how Mozart did it. And as for a rich texture from a pit band of about 30 players, I wonder whether that's partly achieved by having the two horns holding on to notes, doing something similar to what the right pedal on a piano does. The trouble with the vocal scores is that they don’t include many of the little touches that bring the music to life in the orchestra.

On the same thread, someone says that apart from the overture, the Gondoliers can be a bit of bore. I must admit, it's not my favourite and I can never quite understand its popularity. Ruddigore was criticized for having a weak second act but that of the Gondoliers is mostly about people waiting around for someone (Inez) to arrive.

The overture to the Gondoliers that was broadcast on Breakfast was that by Neville Marriner and the ASMF. He used the Malcolm Sargent version, which tags on the cachucha to the end. In the 1920s Sullivan’s scores were "improved" by him, Geoffrey Toye and the D'Oyly Carte music director Harry Norris. That usually included extra brass or cymbal clashes. Of course, I don't approve of tarting things up like that!