The “men only” HMS Pinafore sets sail for Whitechapel in the spring and summer to dock at five “ports”, all but one inland.

East London Advertiser: HMS Pinafore's Richard Russell Edwards, Aidan Crowley and David McKechnie at the Hackney Empire in 2014. Picture: Francis LoneyHMS Pinafore's Richard Russell Edwards, Aidan Crowley and David McKechnie at the Hackney Empire in 2014. Picture: Francis Loney (Image: Francis Loney)

Sasha Regan's acclaimed all-male version of Gilbert and Sullivan's grand musical-operetta, sometimes known as The Lass That Loved a Sailor, berths at Wilton's Music hall on April 15 for four weeks.

It weighs anchor on May 9 when it makes for theatres in Bath, Winchester, Cambridge and Exeter.

The production follows hot on the heels of the all-male Pirates of Penzance, another G&S Victorian blockbuster that was staged Wilton's in 2019.

The same team take you below deck at the restored Victorian music hall in Grace's Alley, behind Cable Street, in a re-imagining of HMS Pinafore, Gilbert and Sullivan's fourth collaboration and first internationally acclaimed comic opera.

But Sasha Regan's production is set on a Second World War battleship. The captain's daughter has fallen for a lower-class sailor. But what lies in store for the lass and her hearty seafarer may surprise or shock the audience.

The comic yarn is told with infectious tunes and a libretto that deals with convention and the age-old conundrum of love between social classes.

HMS Pinafore opens at Wilton's on April 15 at 7.30pm, when the producers promise "plenty of surprises and romantic capers on the high seas"!