A PROUD father is this week reliving his own stage experience as he watches his daughter in a leading role.

Nicky Burrows is spending the week playing the role of Mabel in The Pirates of Penzance for Ilkley Amateurs.

The performance is helping father Brian relive his own experience playing the part of Mabel’s sister 60 years ago.

Brian, who attended Malsis School in Glusburn from 1951 to 1956, was selected to take part in the school’s annual Gilbert and Sullivan production in 1954 at the age of 11.

A group of 30 Malsis old boys and their partners were this week due to be in the audience for the latest production, this time the Broadway version of the evergreen show.

The party included Brian’s old school friends Andrew Hunter, who also played a sister in Pirates, and Brian Moeller, who was a policeman.

The location will be doubly nostalgic for the former pupils, since Malsis School, an independent preparatory school for almost 100 years, was forced to close last term.

Playing alongside Nicky as Mabel’s love interest Frederic is Rob Durkin, who trained classically as a choral scholar at the University of Cambridge and has sung in concert halls all over the world.

His first appearance in a musical was as a much younger man during the professional UK tour of Oliver!.

More recently Rob has appeared in a variety of productions with local amateur theatrical societies including Beauty And The Beast, The Pajama Game, La Cage Aux Folles and Calamity Jane.

This will be Rob’s second appearance for Ilkley Amateurs, having previously peer played Pierre the poet in The Hunchback Of Notre Dame.

The Pirates Of Penzance is running at the King’s Hall, Ilkley, tonight and tomorrow at 7.15pm, and on Saturday at 1.30pm and 5.30pm. The audience is invited to wear costume for the final performance, although this is not obligatory.

Visit ilkleyoperatic.co.uk or call 07763 816611 to book tickets.