he "could not fail to suggest to playgoers what a star the management has lost in Mr. Hare". Squire Bancroft called Sweethearts "one of the most charming and successful plays we ever produced." Thereafter, it enjoyed many revivals and was toured extensively by the Bancrofts and the Kendals. The play continued to be produced until at least the 1920s. Early in his career, Gilbert experimented with his dramatic style. After a number of broad comedies, farces and burlesques, he wrote a series of short comic operas for the German-Reeds at the Gallery of Illustration. At the same time, he created several 'fairy comedies' at the Haymarket Theatre, including The Palace of Truth (1870) and Pygmalion and Galatea (1871). These works, as well as another series of plays that included The Wicked World (1873), Sweethearts, Charity (1874), and Broken Hearts (1875), established that Gilbert's capabilities extended far beyond burlesque, won him artistic credentials, and demonstrated that he was a writer of wide range, as comfortable with human drama as with farcical humour. The success of these plays gave Gilbert a prestige that would be crucial to his later collaboration with as respected a musician as Sullivan. 1874 was a busy year for Gilbert. He illustrated The Piccadilly Annual; supervised a revival of Pygmalion and Galatea; and, besides Sweethearts, he wrote Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, a parody of Hamlet; Charity, a play about the redemption of a fallen woman; a dramatisation of Ought We to Visit Her? (a novel by Annie Edwardes), an adaptation from the French, Committed for Trial, another adaptation from the French called The Blue-Legged Lady, and Topsyturveydom, a comic opera. He also wrote a Bab-illustrated story called "The Story of a Twelfth Cake" for the Graphic Christmas number. A drawing room ballad of the same name was created in 1875 to help advertise the play, based on the story-line of the play, with music by the composer who would go on to become Gilbert's most famous collaborator, Arthur Sullivan. It is one of only three Gilbert and Sullivan songs that were not part of a larger work. Roles and original cast Mr. Henry Spreadbrow (Age 21 in Act I; Age 51 in Act II) – Charles Coughlan Wilcox, a Gardener – Mr. F. Glover Miss Jane Northcott (Age 18 in Act I; Age 48 in Act II) – Marie Wilton (Mrs. Bancroft) Ruth, a Maidservant – Miss Plowden Note: