The Wicked World The Wicked World The Wicked World is a blank verse play by W. S. Gilbert in three acts. It opened at the Haymarket Theatre on 1873 and ran for a successful 145 performances, closing on 1873. The play is an allegory loosely based on a short illustrated story of the same title by Gilbert, written in 1871 and published in Tom Hood's "Comic Annual", about how pure fairies cope with a sudden introduction to them of "mortal love." Set in "Fairy Land", the action occurs within the space of 24 hours. Gilbert envisioned the set as resembling John Martin's 1853
Dulcamara, or the Little Duck and the Great Quack a defining part of Gilbert's work. His parodic pokes at grand opera continued to be seen in the Savoy operas. Gilbert's early burlesques were considered unusually tasteful, compared with the others on the London stage, and he would depart even further from the burlesque style after 1869, with plays containing original plots and fewer puns. These included his "fairy comedies", such as "The Palace of Truth" (1870) and "Pygmalion and Galatea" (1871), and his German Reed Entertainments, which led to the famous Gilbert and Sullivan operas. Gilbert further developed the "Dulcamara" tale in "The Sorcerer" (1877) and "The Mountebanks" (1892),