Who's next?

Having been appointed Lord High Executioner of Titipu, Ko-Ko must plainly demonstrate that there could be work to do: "If I should ever be called upon to act professionally," he proclaims, "I am happy to think that there will be no difficulty in finding plenty of people whose loss will be a distinct gain to society at large."

Thus Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado introduces Ko-Ko's Little List of potential candidates for execution. As the list unfolds, we're repeatedly told: "They'd none of 'em be missed - they'd none of 'em be missed." Although Gilbert did not permit mere singers to tamper with his text - a system of draconian fines was in place for anyone who didn't toe the line - a tradition of updating the Little List gradually developed, most recently in the 1930s-style English National Opera Mikado, directed by Jonathan Miller. Frequently revived, the production was first staged in 1986, with Eric Idle singing KoKo. Idle completely rewrote the Little List, while his successor as KoKo, Richard Suart, positively revels in keeping it up to date.

Now Suart has assembled many of his choicest subjects for execution into a book entitled - of course - They'd None of 'em be Missed. The book is co-authored by Oxford Times reviewer A.S.H. Smyth (himself a seasoned G & S performer), and contains details of other people's Little Lists too.

I met up with Richard Suart in the somewhat Gilbertian surroundings of the Victoria Station Hotel in London, but my thoughts first strayed straight back to Oxfordshire, and Richard's appearance, a year or two back, as grumpy gardener Antonio in a Garsington Opera production of The Marriage of Figaro.

"It's something of a gift to play Antonio at Garsington," Richard laughed. "There is so much you can do before you actually arrive on stage - I was frequently told off for misbehaving in the garden, while everybody else was working hard on stage.

"I played the role at the time Garsington Opera was having a certain amount of trouble with the locals, and complaints about noise and disruption.

"There was one occasion when the usual hedge strimmer started up in the middle of Act 3. As I wasn't working at the time, I popped out in my gardener's outfit, while holding, unfortunately, a scythe in my right hand.

"I tried to get the strimmer man's attention, as gardener to gardener, just as a bit of a joke, to try and defuse the situation. But he obviously thought I was about to attack him with the scythe, got his strimmer, and aimed it at my face. It was a most alarming moment. But I'm sure things have settled down since then!"

Gilbert and Sullivan first entered Richard Suart's life quite early on, he explained.

"When I was about 13 I played the viola in a school production of The Mikado. This was a new genre to me, because I had been brought up as a chorister: I was a church musician through and through. Then at the age of 18 I had the good fortune to play the Judge in Trial by Jury. But then I let it go.

"I didn't join the G & S Society at Cambridge, and I never saw the old D'Oyly Carte company at work. It wasn't until English National Opera suddenly asked me to understudy Bunthorne in Patience that I did any G & S professionally. Then in 1986 I began understudying Eric Idle as KoKo in ENO's production of The Mikado."

Richard Suart's Little Lists range widely, with subjects ranging from politicians ("The MP who found himself face down in Bournemouth in the gutter: Those party conference Guinnesses did cause his brain to flutter") to Oxfordshire celebrities ("That bearded wonder with balloon going slower than a tractor: Yes, Branson had to pull out, but his Virgin's still intacta"). To be properly satirical, the lists must often get quite close to the bone, so I wondered if Richard had ever received threatening letters from firms of solicitors?

"No, not from solicitors, although I have had letters from dowagers taking exception to some of the things I've said. But the great thing about singing a set of lines like this is that you can get away with more if you sing the list than if you read it.

"I have been censored only once, when the ENO production of The Mikado went to Venice. Being a guest in Italy, I thought I should at least try one verse in Italian. So I asked a friend to write up one or two things - Harry's Bar, for instance, the judiciary, and Silvio Berlusconi, then Italian Prime Minister.

"We enjoyed all this until the very first night when, just as the overture was beginning, I was told from on high that I must do the whole list in Gilbert's original version. No fun at all. The performance was going out live on the radio, and they were worried about who might be listening. But, they said, next week you can do what you like."

The list must be topical to be fresh, which means that Richard Suart is very much at the mercy of events. Gordon Brown, I suggested, can't be nearly as easy meat as Tony Blair, never mind Cherie.

"Luckily, there are plenty of other people to replace Mr Brown, because he is so boring. But, of course, when Vince Cable produced that wonderful line about the Prime Minister's remarkable transformation from Stalin down to Mr Bean, it was God's gift. The Archbishop has helped us recently, and I am going to try out a set of lines about Mr al-Fayed tonight, which I last used about 15 years ago. Then there's David Beckham, and his dear wife - he may not be on Fabio Capello's list, but he's certainly on mine."

To use modern management-speak - surely another rich source of material for Little Lists - I wondered if Richard Suart had "planned for his succession"?

"I'm celebrating 20 years of KoKo and the Little Lists. Who would have known that when I started this at the age of 36, I'd still be doing it 20 years later. Luckily, you don't have to worry about how old KoKo is - you're not talking about the juve lead here. But I'd be very upset to do my last KoKo - it will have to happen one day, but I'm almost booked to do some performances in Holland when I'm 60, so I'm looking forward to that."

They'd None of 'em be Missed by Richard Suart and A.S.H. Smyth is published by Pallas Athene (Publishers) Ltd.