The Mikado

Ko-Ko (Martyn Green) has just been made executioner of a small Japanese town, and he has one month to carry out a beheading before the Mikado (John Barclay) arrives. His victim turns up in Nanki-Poo (Kenny Baker), who is heartbroken over Yum-Yum (Jean Colin) and will give up his life for a few weeks beside her. Victor Schertzinger shot Gilbert and Sullivan's comic opera in Technicolor, and it treats a death sentence as the stuff of song.