The Geisha is a musical comedy in two acts, book by Owen Hall, Lyrics by Harry Greenbank, Music by Sidney Jones and produced by George Edwardes for Daly’s Theatre. The play opened in April 1896 in London and proved an immediate hit and ran for over 750 performances. It spawned innumerable productions in Europe, the USA and the British Empire. The fashion for, and interest in, all things from the Orient undoubtedly helped to make this a success. The story centres around a British naval officer and a geisha from the tea house, a fiancée left in England and a Japanese soldier. Events are misconstrued, lovers parted, identities changed but it comes to happy ending, save perhaps for the Japanese Marquis Imari who marries the French interpreter believing her to be the Geisha. Philosophically he accepts his fate, concluding ‘every man is disappointed in his wife at some time or other’.