History Theatre / TheYeomenOfTheGuard

* SomethingCompletelyDifferent: ''Yeomen'' is very different from Creator/GilbertAndSullivan's other collaborations, to accommodate Sullivan's desire to do more serious work. ''Yeomen'' is much darker in tone than other G&S works; it's an outright tragedy instead of the usual light comedy, with a {{downer ending}} instead of the usual armload of marriages; it alone has no satire of British institutions; it alone has a cast that includes someone who [[HistoricalDomainCharacter actually existed]]; it alone starts with a solo instead of the usual chorus; and it alone has an opera-style overture instead of the usual medley of tunes from the show.

* {{Mondegreen}}: Anyone else hear the "love a heartless jade" line from "When Jealous Torments Rack My Soul" as "love a heartless jail"?

* {{Fainting}}:
** Happens to Elsie Maynard.
** And to Jack Point. [[spoiler:That, or he dies.]]

* DarkerAndEdgier / DownerEnding: Most Gilbert and Sullivan plays end with all of the leads happily married off. In ''Yeomen'', two of the three marriages are [[AndNowYouMustMarryMe forced and loveless on one side]] and DoggedNiceGuy Jack Point appears to [[spoiler:die of a broken heart]] after his love interest is reunited with his rival.

* PairTheSpares: Subverted. The marriages that result do not appear happy, and Jack Point gets left out to dry.

'''''The Yeomen of the Guard, or, The Merryman and his Maid''''' is an opera by Creator/GilbertAndSullivan. Though generally considered a "comic opera," it is notable as the team's [[SeriousBusiness most serious]] work. (Sir Henry Lytton wrote that Gilbert once told him that he had always intended Jack Point to die at the end, but had somewhat modified his intention due to the great comic reputation of George Grossmith, who originated the role.)

* CutSong: "When Jealous Torments Rack My Soul" for Wilfred, "A Laughing Boy But Yesterday" for Sgt. Meryll. Modern productions may include either or both songs. As well, both Act Finales have extra lines that can be reinserted in several places.

* NeverSayDie: According to the stage directions, [[spoiler:Jack]] doesn't die, but "falls insensible".

** Sergeant Merryl has Dame Carruthers, whom he finds too old to be attractive.

* PatterSong: Jack Point has two, "I've Jibe and Joke" and "Oh, a Private Buffoon", as well as a patter duet with Wilfred in "Like a Ghost His Vigil Keeping". Sgt. Merryl and Dame Carruthers have a semi-patter duet in "Rapture, Rapture!"

* SoUnfunnyItsFunny: Jack Point's attempts to impress the Lieutenant are this.

* DoggedNiceGuy: Jack Point "is not yet marries to Elsie Maynard, but time works wonders..."

* SheIsAllGrownUp: Played with. When Phœbe greets Fairfax as "Leonard", he has no idea who she is. Upon learning that she's his sister, he exclaims, "Why, how you've grown! I did not recognise you!"

* HistoricalDomainCharacter: Sir Richard Cholmondeley was Lieutenant of the Tower of London from 1513 to 1520. [[note]]This indicates that the play is set early in the reign of King HenryVIII, although a reference to Anne Boleyn's execution suggests a date after 1536.[[/note]]

* CutSong: "When Jealous Torments Rack My Soul" for Wilfred, "A Laughing Boy But Yesterday" for Sgt. Meryll. Modern productions may include either or both songs.
* DarkReprise: "I Have a Song to Sing, O!" first appears as an uplifting song and dance in the first act, with the first two (and more depressing) verses slightly altered for their reprise at the end.

* AndNowYouMustMarryMe: Not one, but two major characters are forced into loveless marriages to [[AbhorrentAdmirer detested admirers]] who have enough dirt on them to get them executed.

* PatterSong: Jack Point has two, "I've Jibe and Joke" and "Oh, a Private Buffoon." Sgt. Merryl and Dame Carruthers get a patter duet in "Rapture, Rapture!"

* DarkReprise: "I Have a Song to Sing, O!"
* DarkerAndEdgier / DownerEnding: Most Gilbert and Sullivan plays end with all of the leads happily married off. [[spoiler: The leads get married off, but two of the three marriages involve being forced into marrying someone they despise and DoggedNiceGuy Jack Point dies of a broken heart after Elsie is reunited with Fairfax]].

* FaceDeathWithDignity: Fairfax

* HistoricalDomainCharacter: Sir Richard Cholmondeley was Lieutenant of the Tower of London from 1513 to 1524. The play is thus set early in the reign of King HenryVIII.

* PatterSong: Jack Point has two of them -- "I've Jibe and Joke" and "Oh, a Private Buffoon." Sgt. Merryl and Dame Carruthers get a patter duet in "Rapture, rapture!"

* SadClown: Jack Point

* YeOldeButcheredeEnglishe: Averted, for the most part; as mentioned above, Gilbert made a special study of Elizabethan language to get it right.
** He did make one blunder, however. In "When a wooer goes a-wooing," he uses the word "mickle" to mean "little" ("'Tis but mickle sister reaps"); it actually means the exact opposite, "much, large, great."
*** To be fair, "mickle" ''does'' mean "little" in Scottish dialects, which use "muckle" to mean "large". (Northern English dialects reverse the meanings.) Gilbert probably learned the Scottish definitions of the words during his many years in a Highland volunteer regiment.

* MurderTheHypotenuse: Played with. Fairfax is the hypotenuse of not one but ''two'' love triangles. His rivals, Point and Wilfred, publicly claim to have killed him as he tried to swim across the Thames, reasoning that Fairfax can't contradict them without fatally blowing his cover.

'''''The Yeomen of the Guard, or, The Merryman and his Maid''''' is an opera by GilbertAndSullivan. Though generally considered a "comic opera," it is notable as the team's [[SeriousBusiness most serious]] work. (Sir Henry Lytton wrote that Gilbert once told him that he had always intended Jack Point to die at the end, but had somewhat modified his intention due to the great comic reputation of George Grossmith, who originated the role.)

* DarkerAndEdgier / DownerEnding: Most Gilbert Sullivan productions end with all of the leads happily married off. [[spoiler: The leads get married off, but two of the three marriages involve being forced into marrying someone they despise and DoggedNiceGuy Jack Point dies of a broken heart after Elsie is reunited with Fairfax]].

[[folder:Synopsis]]
In [[TheRenaissance the early sixteenth century]], Colonel Fairfax, framed on a charge of sorcery, is imprisoned in the Tower of London, set to be executed; his friend, Sergeant Meryll and Meryll's amorous daughter Phœbe hatch a plot to loose Fairfax and let him assume the place of Meryll's son, due to join the Yeomen of the Guard.

Meanwhile, the strolling players [[TheJester Jack Point]] and Elsie Maynard take service with the Lieutenant of the Tower; the Lieutenant, who has been asked by Fairfax to find him a woman to marry (in order to keep his property from going to the cousin who framed him), convinces Elsie (and Point, who loves her) to let a blindfolded Elsie be Fairfax's bride, since the groom will be executed immediately thereafter.) The marriage accomplished, Meryll springs his plot; Elsie and Point are horrified to find that her husband is still alive. When Fairfax learns that it is the winsome Elsie whom he has married, he resolves to woo her in the character of Leonard Meryll, and succeeds in gaining her affections, though she refuses to marry him until assured that she is free of Fairfax.

Meanwhile, Point and the oafish gaoler Wilfred Shadbolt plot to declare that Shadbolt has shot the escaped Fairfax, but that the body unfortunately sank in the river. Elsie, to the grief and shock of Point and Phœbe, agrees to marry Leonard/Fairfax; but is shocked in her turn when she learns that Fairfax has been pardoned and come to claim her; her tears turn to joy when she learns that Fairfax ''is'' Leonard -- but the opera [[DownerEnding ends on a melancholy note]], as Point, seeing that Elsie is lost to him forever, "[[NeverSayDie falls insensible]]" at her feet.
[[/folder]]

* DarkerAndEdgier
* DownerEnding

* ForDoomTheBellTolls

** DeathOfTheHypotenuse: Jack Point.

* PatterSong: Jack Point has two of them -- "I've Jibe and Joke" and "Oh, a Private Buffoon."

* RagsToRoyalty

* [[SoUnfunnyItsFunny So Unfunny, It's Funny]]: Jack Point's attempts to impress the Lieutenant are this.