Staged as part this year’s inaugural G&S Fest – outgoing artistic director Stuart Maunder’s parting gift to State Opera South Australia – Trail by Jury is a reworking of his 2005 production for Opera Australia, which famously starred Anthony Warlow as the Learned Judge.

Save the costumes by Roger Kirk, however, this is an altogether different experience for the audience. For one thing, it’s being staged in the rooms of the Adelaide District Court, with multiple ‘court sessions’ throughout the day.

Nicholas Gannon as the Learned Judge in Trial by Jury. Courtroom sketch © Tim Ide

The busloads of people waiting in line to be screened by security are quite something to behold, as is passing below the glorious façade of the imposing Sir Simon Way building with its grand, neoclassical columns.

Originally Moore’s Department Store, the building was modelled on the Galeries Lafayette in Paris. Its spectacular dome still survives, as does the Escher-like maze of interlocking staircases below. Led past this spectacular sight, one enters another world were fact and fiction become one.

The real-life Sheriff instructs the audience where to sit – a handful along the judge’s bench, others...