Topsy Turvy

TopsyTurvy is a 1999 musical drama film written and directed by Mike Leigh and stars Allan Corduner as Sir Arthur Sullivan and Jim Broadbent as W. S. Gilbert, along with Timothy Spall and Lesley Manville. The story concerns the 15month period in 1884 and 1885 leading up to the premiere of Gilbert and Sullivans The Mikado. The film focuses on the creative conflict between playwright and composer, and the decision by the two men to continue their partnership, which led to the creation of several more famous Savoy Operas between them.

On the opening night of Princess Ida at the Savoy Theatre in January 1884, composer Sir Arthur Sullivan Allan Corduner, who is ill from kidney disease, is barely able to make it to the theatre to conduct. He goes on a holiday to Continental Europe hoping that the rest will improve his health. While he is away, ticket sales and audiences at the Savoy Theatre wilt in the hot summer weather. Producer Richard DOyly Carte Ron Cook has called on Sullivan and the playwright W. S. Gilbert Jim Broadbent to create a new piece for the Savoy, but it is not ready when Ida closes. Until a new piece can be prepared, Carte revives an earlier Gilbert and Sullivan work, The Sorcerer.Gilberts idea for their next opera features a transformative magic potion, which Sullivan feels is too similar to the magic lozenge and other magic talismans used in previous operas and appears mechanical in its reliance on a supernatural device. Sullivan, under pressure to write more serious music, says he longs for something that is probable and involves human interest, and is not dependent on magic. Gilbert sees nothing wrong with his libretto and refuses to write a new one, which results in a standoff. The impasse is resolved after Gilbert and his wife visit a popular exhibition of Japanese arts and crafts in Knightsbridge, London. When the katana sword he purchases there falls noisily off the wall of his study, he is inspired to write a libretto set in exotic Japan. Sullivan likes the idea and agrees to compose the music for it. ........

Source: Wikipedia