?Show Stoppers!? A recap of the best of Gilbert & Sullivan Society of Bermuda shows brings The Bermuda Festival Programme to a spectacular close starting tonight at the City Hall Theatre.

This year?s Festival audiences will be treated to musical highlights from Gilbert & Sullivan Society productions over the last 33 years.

Festival organisers have called it a ?wonderful ride down memory lane?.

However, ?Show Stoppers!? will also include musical numbers that have never before been performed in Bermuda.

The Gilbert & Sullivan Society of Bermuda was conceived by Warwick Academy music teacher Marcia Suddards when Warwick Academy students performed ?The Mikado? in 1972.

Sets and programme were designed by sculptor and artist Desmond Fountain who was then the art teacher.

The group of adults who were rounded up to play leading roles and to augment the chorus became known as the Warwick Academy Players.

?The Mikado? was so successful that the following year Mrs. Suddards produced ?The Gondoliers? and prior to her departure from Bermuda in 1974 she directed?Iolanthe?, which was produced in association with Bermuda Theatre Guild. ?Iolanthe? was the last production to be staged at Warwick Academy.

In March 1974 the official Gilbert & Sullivan Society of Bermuda was formed with the aim of fostering the performance of Gilbert & Sullivan operettas as well as other forms of light opera and providing financial assistance to various charities of the Society?s choice.

Mr. Reynolds Keat was the first president and in 1975, the Society produced ?The Pirates of Penanze?.

In 1998, the phenomenal success of ?Les Miserables? was a testament to the level of artistic standard that the Gilbert & Sullivan Society of Bermuda had reached and its success was a major turning point for the Society. Patricia Calnan of wrote of ?Les Miserables?, ?As the notes of ?do you hear the people sing?? reached their final crescendo, an emotionally charged audience rose to its feet in a frenzy of cheers.

?It was the remarkable end to a remarkable evening at City Hall, in which every major number and even the stage sets were acknowledged with enthusiastic applause.

?So, with this magnificent production, Bermuda joins the world-wide fraternity of countries that have taken ?Les Miserables? to its collective heart.?