What is the Hot Mikado?
The Mikado, the 19th-century operetta by Sir William Gilburt and Sir Arthur Sullivan, was the biggest musical comedy sensation of the Victorian era. Gilbert set his opera in Imperial Japan, supposedly because a Japanese sword that fell off his wall inspired him. More likely it was because he knew London was undergoing a craze for everything Japanese, and a musical set there would sell. But The Mikado, though set in Japan and filled with Japanese references, names and glorious costumes, was really about English morality and satirized the British love of propriety and legality. The success of the show was something many writers and producers tried to cash in on during the 1920s in America. There were three separate productions called Cool Mikado, Jazz Mikado and Swing Mikado. They all showed very little regard for the original authors and were financially disastrous. In the 1930s, producer Mike Todd created Hot Mikado, taking the G&S musical, retaining its plot, but changing the lyrics t
