Albert Herring

May Day is looming, and the small town of Loxford is in chaos. All the potential May Queens are morally unsuitable. Desperate, the locals decide a May King will have to do instead. They choose the blameless Albert Herring, from the greengrocers. He isn’t keen, but stuck firmly under his mother’s thumb, he’ll do what he is told. However, after one rum-laced lemonade at the May Day ceremony, Albert disappears, and even greater chaos ensues. [Britten]’s sharply satiric take on village life makes for a glorious and very English comedy.