Gilbert and Sullivan change the characters, which Sullivan found artificial and lacking in "human interest and probability", as well as being too similar to their earlier opera, "The Sorcerer". As dramatised in the film "Topsy-Turvy", the author and composer were at an impasse until 8 May 1884, when Gilbert dropped the lozenge idea and agreed to provide a libretto without any supernatural elements. The story focuses on a "cheap tailor," Ko-Ko, who is promoted to the position of Lord High Executioner of the town of Titipu. Ko-Ko loves his ward, Yum-Yum, but she loves a musician, who is really the son of the
Gilbert and Sullivan [The words'] precise degree of levity and distance from reality ... seemed to be expressed ... in the very notes of the music; almost ... in the note of the laughter that followed it." In 1957, a review in "The Times" gave this rationale for "the continued vitality of the Savoy operas": Because of the unusual success of the operas, the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company were able, from the start, to license the works to other professional companies, such as the J. C. Williamson Gilbert and Sullivan Opera Company, and to amateur troupes. For almost a century, until the British