IT’LL BE a bit of a trial for audiences at this year’s Gilbert and Sullivan show in Haworth.

Trial By Jury, to be precise, as Haworth West Lane Baptist Amateurs presents the operetta as part of a double bill.

Trial By Jury is, as tradition dictates, being presented along with popular G&S show HMS Pinafore.

Trial By Jury is a one-act comic opera which was first presented in 1875 at London’s Royalty Theatre.

It initially clocked up 131 performances and was considered a hit, receiving critical praise and outrunning its original companion piece, Offenbach’s La Perichole.

The story focuses on a “breach of promise of marriage” lawsuit and allowed lyricist Gilbert to parody the British legal system in his usual light-hearted way.

The show premiered more than three years after Gilbert and Sullivan’s only previous collaboration, Thespis, and in the intervening years both worked on separate projects.

Gilbert tried several times to get his idea for Trial By Jury off the ground before impresario Richard D’Oyly Carte – who presented many of the duo’s subsequent hits – suggested Gilbert collaborate on it with Sullivan.

As with most G&S operettas the storyline of Trial By Jury is ludicrous, but the characters behave as if the events are perfectly sensible.

This way of telling the story softens some of the satirical attacks on hypocrisy, and the motives of those in authority.

The success of Trial By Jury began the famous series of 13 comic-opera collaborations between Gilbert and Sullivan, which together became known as the Savoy Operas.

In the late 1800s Trial By Jury toured widely in Britain and across Europe, and has since become popular as a double bill with several of the shorter G&S works.

According to theatre scholar Kurt Ganzl , Trial By Jury is “probably the most successful British one-act operetta of all time”.

The Haworth West Lane Baptist Amateurs production will feature several of the group’s regular principal players, along with a handful promoted from the chorus to leading roles.

The cast of Trial By Jury is led by Bill Bairstow, Norman Fryer, David Robinson, Ron McGill, Felicity Todd and Michael Lofthouse.

Trial By Jury and HMS Pinafore will be performed together from November 17 to 22 at 7.15pm, with a Saturday matinee at 2.15pm.

Tickets cost £10 for adults, £8 for over-60s, and £5 for children, including tea and biscuits.

Call 01535 643425 to book tickets.