historian John Bush Jones wrote that Pinafore has "everything a musical theatregoer could ask for. An engaging and even relatively suspenseful story is populated with varied and well-drawn characters who speak and sing witty, literate, and often outrageously funny dialogue and lyrics [and] has a score that ... has plenty of tunes for the audience to go away humming". George Power, the tenor who created the role of Ralph Rackstraw, opined in later life that the secret of the success of the Savoy operas is the way in which "Sullivan entered into the spirit of Gilbert's topsy-turvy humour, and was pompous when Gilbert was sprightly, or, when Gilbert's satire was keenest and most acid, consciously wallowed in sentiment." Another commentator has suggested that the opera's enduring success lies in its focus on "mirth and silliness". Even the title of the piece is silly, applying the name of a little girl's garment, a pinafore, to the fearsome symbol of a naval warship, which usually bore names like Victory, Goliath, Audacious and Minotaur. Satiric and comic themes Gilbert's biographer Jane Stedman wrote that Pinafore is "satirically far more complex" than The Sorcerer. She commented that Gilbert uses several ideas and themes from his Bab Ballads, including the idea of gentlemanly behaviour of a captain towards his crew from "Captain Reece" (1868) and the exchange of ranks due to exchange at birth from "General John" (1867). Dick Deadeye, based on a character in "Woman's Gratitude" (1869), represents another of Gilbert's favorite (and semi-autobiographical) satiric themes: the misshapen misanthrope whose forbidding "face and form" makes him unpopular although he represents the voice of reason and common sense. Gilbert also borrows from his 1870 opera, The Gentleman in Black which includes the device of baby-switching. Historian H. M. Walbrook wrote in 1921 that Pinafore "satirizes the type of nautical drama of which Douglas Jerrold's Black-Eyed Susan is a typical instance, and the 'God's Englishman' sort of patriotism which consists in shouting a platitude, striking an attitude, and doing little or nothing to help one's country". G. K. Chesterton agreed that the satire is pointed at the selfishness of "being proud of yourself for being a citizen" of one's country, which requires no virtuous effort of will to resist the "temptations to belong to other nations" but is merely an excuse for pride. In 2005, Australian opera director Stuart Maunder noted the juxtaposition of satire and