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 4 January 1873 and ran for a successful 145 performances, closing on 21 June 1873.^[1] 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 painting The Plains of Heaven: vaporous mountains and headlands around ethereal blue and a flowering slope on which sit white-clad angels. Gilbert also specified that the women characters 'in costume & general appearance – should suggest the idea rather of angels than of conventional fairies, and they exhibit an 'overweening sense of righteousness,' arising from their freedom from sin.^[2]