England: Judges take the stage as Old Bailey hosts Gilbert and Sullivan

Last week, the Grand Hall of the Central Criminal Court became the setting for Trial by Jury, Gilbert and Sullivan’s satirical one-act opera, performed over three nights by the Old Bailey Choir with support from the English National Opera – and senior member of the judiciary and bar.

Baroness Carr of Walton-on-the-Hill, the lady chief justice, was among seven serving judges who appeared in the chorus. The production marked the tenth anniversary of the Old Bailey Choir and was the idea of Judge Anthony Leonard, a senior circuit judge, with the backing of Mark Lucraft KC, the recorder of London.

Baroness Carr – the first woman to hold the office of chief justice, appointed in 2023 – appeared among the “bridesmaids and public”, women being ineligible in 1875 even to sit on the jury.

Fellow judges Mrs Justice Dias, Judge Rosina Cottage and Judge Lynn Tayton joined her in the chorus, while Tom Little KC, the first senior Treasury counsel, sat on the jury alongside Mr Justice Griffiths, Judge Mark Bryant-Heron and Judge Leonard.

The role of the morally dubious judge was sung by the professional performer John Savournin, with Madeline Boreham as Angeline and Osian Wyn Bowen as Edwin.

Proceeds from the performances are being shared between the Sheriffs’ and Recorder’s Fund, which supports prisoners on release and families visiting inmates, and the ENO’s Harewood Artists programme for emerging British singers.

WS Gilbert was called to the bar of the Inner Temple in 1863 but his legal career never took off and he instead focused on writing.

A report of his death in The Times in 1911 stated: “Trial by Jury (Royalty Theatre, 1876) is one of the most characteristic things we possess … the choice of our legal procedure as a mark for the author’s satire, and the exquisite absurdity of the whole treatment make it only describable by the word that has enriched our language for the purpose. ‘Gilbertian’.”