No, not the Cyril Ornadel/Leslie Bricusse musical from 1963 but Burnand and Solomon’s one-act ‘dramatic cantata’ premiered at the Comedy Theatre, London, on February 7, 1889. Sadly, this Pickwick turns out to be very thin gruel indeed, and with no equivalents of ‘If I ruled the world’. The story, such as it is, imagines a situation prior to the famous trial scene in The Pickwick Papers in which Mrs Bardell takes Pickwick to court for ‘breach of promise’. Will her gentleman lodger name the day – or will she have to make do with the baker?

Burnand’s libretto is soggily dated and he is no Gilbert when it comes to inventive, sparkling comic lyrics. Solomon, too, is no Sullivan: his word-setting ability is limp, his melodies derivative and instantly forgettable. I must commend Gaynor Keeble (Mrs Bardell) and the marvellous Simon Butteriss, the Martyn Green de nos jours, for giving Pickwick such committed mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, but the patient, I fear, was already dead on the operating table. In addition, Alessandro MacKinnon as Mrs Bardell’s son Tommy had unfortunately lost whatever tonal beauty his treble voice possessed by the time this 2016 recording was made in the forensic acoustic of the National Opera Studio.

Of much greater interest is the curtain-raiser Cups and Saucers, a brief (18'18") duologue with book, lyrics and music by George Grossmith, he of The Diary of a Nobody (written with his brother Weedon) and creator of nine major G&S roles. It is an impossibly silly story but here, at least, are a few decent songs and with actable dialogue that Keeble and Butteriss bring off the page with relish.

Both pieces are directed from the keyboard with admirable skill by Stephen Higgins. The disc has been produced and packaged by Retrospect Opera to a very high standard and, the reservations above notwithstanding, provides a rare and thus valuable opportunity to hear two late Victorian entertainments that were immensely popular in their day.