The Flitterbat Club. Sixth Performance by W.S. Gilbert and G.C. Herbert 1881

GILBERT, W. S. (1836-1911) and HERBERT, G. C. The Flitterbat Club. Sixth Performance. Thursday & Friday, June 23rd & 24th, 1881.
 
Single sheet folded to four pages, 110 x 180 mm. Printed in red on blue-grey paper, with an attractive pictorial device of a bat flying before the moon to the upper cover. Faint traces of former mounting, principally along the left margin, with light handling and a few small surface marks. Very good.
 
Programme for the sixth performance of the amateur Flitterbat Club, presenting G. C. Herbert's one-act drama Our Bitterest Foe, followed by Sir William Schwenck Gilbert's three-act farcical comedy Engaged. Herbert's play had first been performed at the Adelphi Theatre in 1874.
 
The musical programme includes an overture by Arthur Sullivan, together with pieces by Th. Michaelis and Audran. Full casts are given for both plays, alongside the club committee and production staff. The final page prints a lengthy membership list under the mock-archaic heading "Ye Flytterbatte Clube", including members of the Chisenhale-Marsh, Cusack-Smith, Byrom and other families.
 
An attractive piece of Victorian theatrical ephemera with a W. S. Gilbert association. A copy of this same programme is held by the Morgan Library & Museum.