Birdcatcher

Shortly afterwards a birdcatcher came and stood under the tree, and laid his lime-twigs for the Dove, which sat in the branches.

In the previous race, Yolo Again is a hopeful choice in what looks a competitive edition of the valuable Birdcatcher Nursery.

Brendan Duke's Pride Of Pimlico (2.35) has shown some decent form and can land the Birdcatcher Nursery if there is a bit of rain at the Kildare venue.

The Lyons/Keane treble was initiated when Moonlight Bay, bought out of Kevin Prendergast's yard last month, made a successful debut for her new handler in the At the Races Birdcatcher Nursery.

When they leave to tell the queen of what happened, the birdcatcher Papageno appears and boasts how he was the one who killed the creature.

Baritone John Brancy played Papageno broadly, focusing on the bumpkin aspects of the birdcatcher's personality.

As the prince who finds himself facing a series of trials, with the prize a princess, Peter Wedd was every bit the brooding hero - and straight man to birdcatcher Papageno, the brightest light in the show.

Whipless (3.05) is fancied to give his rivals weight and a beating in the Birdcatcher Premier Nursery.

He is armed with a magic flute to protect him along the way and accompanied by the birdcatcher Papa-geno in his coat of many coloured feathers.

Jacques' 14 songs alternate between the Tiger Lillies' trademark blasphemous reinterpretations of old English ballads (one is called "Screw You") and numbers inspired by Mozart: "Fame" ingeniously takes the chord sequence from a "Magic Flute" aria and makes a whole new song from it, while "The Merry Birdcatcher" utilizes the text of another aria from the same opera but sets it to quite a different tune.