Kenneth Sandford

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John Reed (right) as Ko-Ko; Ken Sandford (left) as Pooh Bah
John Reed (right) as Ko-Ko; Ken Sandford (left) as Pooh Bah

Kenneth Sandford (June 28, 1924 – September 19, 2004) was an English singer and actor, best known for his performances in baritone roles of the Savoy Operas with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, including Pooh-Bah in The Mikado.

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[edit] Beginnings

Kenneth Sandford was born Kenneth Parkin in Godalming, Surrey and raised in Sheffield, where his father became landlord of a pub.[1] He hoped to be an artist, studying painting at the College of Arts and Crafts in Sheffield, where he won a scholarship to the Royal College of Art in London. After he returned from service in the Royal Air Force during World War II, he attended that college, but he took up singing and became intrigued by the theatre. He began to perform in musicals, concerts and oratorios and switched to opera school.

Sandford played roles in several shows on the Strand and on tour between 1950 and 1956, including Carousel at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane (1950–51) (understudying and appearing as Billy Bigelow); on tour as Count Igor Staniev in King's Rhapsody; as Sandy Twist in Paint Your Wagon at His Majesty's Theatre (1953–54); in Kismet and in a revue called Jokers Wild with The Crazy Gang at Victoria Palace Theatre (1954–56).

In 1952 he married Pauline Joyce, and the couple had a son and a daughter.

[edit] D'Oyly Carte years

Sandford joined the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company in 1957, replacing Arthur Richards as principal baritone, immediately assuming the roles of the Sergeant of Police in The Pirates of Penzance, Archibald Grosvenor in Patience, Private Willis in Iolanthe, King Hildebrand in Princess Ida, Pooh-Bah in The Mikado, Sir Despard Murgatroyd in Ruddigore, Wilfred Shadbolt in The Yeomen of the Guard, and Don Alhambra del Bolero in The Gondoliers. He dropped the role of Sergeant of Police in 1962 (which he found uncomfortably low for his lyric baritone voice) and added Dr. Daly to his repertoire when The Sorcerer was revived in 1971. In 1962, he played Shadbolt in a grand production of Yeomen staged at the Tower of London as part of the first City of London Festival.

For the 1975 D'Oyly Carte centenary season, Sandford played all his principal baritone roles as well as King Paramount in the company's first revival of Utopia, Limited since the original production, and Ludwig in a concert performance of The Grand Duke. Sandford remained with the D'Oyly Carte company for twenty-five years, ending on the company's last night, February 27, 1982.

[edit] After the D'Oyly Carte

After the D'Oyly Carte's closure, Sandford remained closely involved with Gilbert and Sullivan. He served as managing director of a touring company, "The Magic of Gilbert & Sullivan," and along with Roberta Morrell, co-directed and appeared in several Savoy Operas at Gawsworth Hall, Cheshire. Sandford toured North America several times with Geoffrey Shovelton, John Ayldon, Lorraine Daniels, and others with a concert program of G&S favorites called "The Best of Gilbert & Sullivan," and other concerts and productions, including at the Berkshire Choral Institute with John Reed in The Gondoliers (1985).

He performed in and conducted master classes at Gilbert & Sullivan conferences in Toronto and Philadelphia, and at Buxton's International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival.

[edit] Recordings

Sandford recorded all of his major roles with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, except Dr. Daly, for Decca Records; these recordings are still available. He also recorded several parts with the company that he never performed with them on stage (although in subsequent years he performed some of them): Counsel for the Plaintiff in Trial by Jury (1964); Usher in Trial (1975); Phantis and Lord Dramaleigh in a recording of Utopia excerpts (1964), and Thomas Brown in The Zoo (1978). Sandford took part in the 1965 BBC television broadcast of Patience as Grosvenor, the 1966 film version of The Mikado as Pooh-Bah, and was the voice of Sir Despard in the 1967 Halas & Batchelor Ruddigore cartoon.

Sandford also appeared on a Reader's Digest LP collection, "The Best of Gilbert & Sullivan" in 1963. Contractually prohibited from recording the roles he had played with D'Oyly Carte, Sandford can be heard in this collection of excerpts as the Pirate King in Pirates, the Earl of Mountararat in Iolanthe, the Duke of Plaza-Toro and Giuseppe in The Gondoliers, and Colonel Calverley in Patience.

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Daily Telegraph obituary, 11 October 2004

[edit] References

  • Ayre, Leslie (1972). The Gilbert & Sullivan Companion. London: W.H. Allen & Co Ltd.  Introduction by Martyn Green.
  • Morrell, Roberta (1999). Kenneth Sandford: "Merely corroborative detail". Leicester: Scotia Press. 

[edit] External links