The Pirates of Penzance Synopsis & Characters

ACT ONE

As a young boy, Frederic was due to be apprenticed to a ships' pilot but due to his nurserymaid (Ruth) mishearing the word pilot and mistaking it for pirate, he ends up apprenticed to  the infamous Pirates of Penzance! Now approaching his 21st birthday and the end of his indentured apprenticeship, Frederic plans to leave piracy and lead a blameless life.  He is persuaded to take Ruth with him by the pirates who don't seem to want her in their band.  Encountering a large group of young women, the daughters of Major General Stanley, he realises that Ruth is not as young or quite as beautiful as she had made out.  Instantly falling in love with all of them, he pleads for help in returning to civilisation following which one of the daughters (Mabel) promises to love him.  The  band of pirates, spotting the girls, spy a great opportunity to get married with impunity when in comes  Major General Stanley, the father of the all the girls.  On hearing of the pirates' plans to marry his daughters, he tells a little white lie claiming to be an orphan - something the less than hard-hearted pirates can sympathise with being orphans themselves. They release the Major General and his daughters, and make the Major General an honorary member of their band.

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ACT TWO

The Major General is tormented by the lie he told and admits it to Frederic before summoning the local police force to go and arrest the pirates.  The somewhat fearful police are sent off with encouragement from the Major General's daughters who expect them all to die!  In a moment of quiet, Frederic is approached by the Pirate King and Ruth who explain that having been born on 29th February in a leap year, Frederic is only 5 1/4 (going by birthdays).   Since he was apprenticed until his 21st birthday, Frederic is therefore still legally indentured to the pirates.  Frederic, a slave to his sense of duty, resumes his piratical career and has to tell the Pirate King of the Major General's lie.  The Pirate King, incensed, plots immediate and deadly revenge.  The pirates launch an assault on Tremorden Castle to kill the Major General whilst the police hearing them, hide ready to effect their arrest.  Sadly the police are no match for the pirates and are swiftly overcome until the police play their trump card and command the pirates to yield "in the name of Queen Victoria".  Being at heart, loyal subjects of the Crown, the pirates lay down their weapons, but before they are taken away to be sentenced, Ruth explains they aren't just any just any plain common criminals.  They are in fact all members of the House of Lords who have just gone a bit awry.  The Major General, as any true Englishman would,  has great respect for the House of Lords and realises that their life of piracy was just youthful high spirits and so offers all his daughters in matrimony.