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Oakley hits the target
Jason Donovan as Frank, Norman Pace as Buffalo Bill and Emma Williams as Annie Annie Get Your Gun
New Alexandra Theatre
*** SHARPSHOOTING Annie Oakley finds there is
no business like show business when she joins Buffalo Bill’s Wild West
Show in this revival of Irving Berlin’s 1946 Broadway musical. This particular outpost
of the business is fun, lively and has some well-known standards by
master songwriter Berlin, songs that most people recognise even if they
have no idea which show they were from, and the sort of songs helping to
drive the current fashion for revivals of shows from the golden age of
musicals with the likes of Top Hat
and Singin’ in the Rain.
The original had a book by brother and sister
team Herbert and Dorothy Fields but this Ambassador Theatre Group
production uses the 1999 Broadway revival with its revised book by Peter
Stone which loses some of the songs and removes some of the perceived
sexist and racist undertones which were acceptable in 1946 but are less
so now. Native Americans being cheated out of oil rights on their
reservations is not funny any more, for example. It tells the story of a rural Ohio girl Annie
Oakley who had to be a crackshot to kill enough game to feed her family
and when Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show comes to town with world champion
sharpshooter Frank Butler challenging the best shot in the county – she
is the challenger. Butler is played by 80's heartthrob Jason
Donovan, who might be top billing on the marquee but the real star of
the show is Emma Williams as Annie who shines as the rough and ready
backwoodswoman turned superstar and has a voice which has everything
from a gentle softness to theatre filling power and, as we see in
Anything You Can Do, she can keep a note going for ever . . . or at
least long enough to have the audience gasping for breath even if she
wasn't. She has the voice, personality and talent to make
musical theatre her natural home with such songs as Doin’ What Comes
Natur’lly, You Can’t Get a Man With a Gun and I’ve Got The Sun in
the Morning, along with duets with Donovan including The Girl
That I Marry and An Old Fashioned Wedding. She outshines Donovan but that is hardly
surprising, the whole show was originally He is a seasoned performer these days, last seen
in these parts in a moving performance as Tick in Priscilla, Queen of
the Desert, but in truth he is left with a part here which gives him
little to play with; there is little scope for him to be anything
but Mr Nice Guy - even his walk out at Annie being given top billing is
polite and refined.
Fly in the ointment is Dolly Tate, played by Kara
Lane, Frank’s partner who wants him for herself, although, as the shelf
she is left upon gets higher, it transpires she will accept substitutes
in the shape of . . . well any man she can marry. As a backstory we have her younger sister, Winnie
(Lorna Want) who is banned by Dolly from marrying the love of her life,
the show’s knifethrower Tommy (Yiftach Mizrahi) who is half Indian. Running the show is Col William Cody, Buffalo
Bill, played by Norman Pace who is carving out a stage career after his
days in Hale and Pace and makes a good fist of the flamboyant showman
assisted by Charlie Davenport (William Oxborrow) who manages the show
and Chief Sitting Bull (Ed Currie) who throws in some nice one-liners. Amid the rivalry in romance between Annie and
Dolly there is also rivalry in show business with another wild west show
run by Pawnee Bill (Dermot Canavan) and as it seems this world ain’t big
enough for two wild west shows both are on their uppers but we all know
that There is no Business Like Show Business, which opens and
closes the show and appears twice in-between, so everything is bound to
turn out all right in the end. Music is provided by an excellent nine piece on stage band under musical director Stephen Ridley in a setting from Paul Farnsworth which gives us a big top with boxes and banners creating everything from a cattle boat to a night train in what would be the ring. I particularly liked the huge curtain with the
image of a train travelling across the stage for one change, and then
clever lighting in the train scene to show the lights from the carriage
windows flashing by on the side of the track at night Lighting from Jason Taylor and sound from Gregory
Clarke, are both excellent, helped no doubt by a custom, brought in
light and sound rig which should make for consistency through the tour. There are also some well executed special
effects, hardly earth shattering stuff, but Annie shooting apples in
half, shattering bottles or bursting balloons, or Tommy’s knife throwing
act all looked authentic which all helps in the make believe which is
theatre Director Ian Talbot keeps up a good pace and with
rapid scene changes familiar tunes and good cast this is musical which
ticks most of the boxes, but not quite. Losing the 1946 opening song from Frank, I’m a
Bad, Bad Man takes away his charisma as a dangerous, bad boy,
womanising gunslinger, a charmer someone like Annie might instantly fall
for. It takes away a bit of colour and depth to Donovan's character,
which is a pity, while other changes in the 1999 version tend to
sanitise rather than dramatise. It misses that pizazz, that indefinable magic
that lifts a show into the realms of being special but that being
said it is a good, solid, entertaining show with some fine performances,
suitable for all the family, with good songs, an excellent cast and band
all proving there really is no business like show business. To 05-07-14. Roger Clarke
01-07-14 The musical is a highly fictionalised telling of
Annie’s life. Annie, real name Phoebe Ann Moses was 15 when she took on
Irish immigrant Frank in a shooting contest in Cincinnati in 1875 and
won the $100 prize, worth more almost $2,200 today. The pair married the
following year. But it was not until 1885 that the by then
successful double act joined Buffalo Bill’s Wild West. In declining
health Annie, aged 66, died of pernicious anaemia in 1926; her
distraught husband of 50 years, Frank,died 18 days later, aged 74. Meanwhile shooting from the hip . . . WHEN you are playing opposite a big star
like Jason Donovan it pays to be good, and hot-shot Emma Williams is
exactly that in this enjoyable Irving Berlin musical. The pretty actress, of Casualty fame, is a
delight as sharpshooter Annie Oakley who beats rival Frank Butler in a
target competition and falls in love with him before having to survive a
bout of jealousy. Emma is fresh and bubbly, bursting with
enthusiasm and she has just the voice for the role, particularly in
songs like Doin’ What Comes Natur’lly and Anything You Can Do. Inevitably Donovan is somewhat in her shadow, but
he plays his part, impressing with The Girl That I Marry and a
rousing version of There’s No Business Like Show Business. The story lacks the emotion and zip of, say
Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, but with so many good songs it
clearly pleased the first night audience who showed commendable patience
when the performance began 13 minutes late through technical problems. Norman Pace – remember him in the comedy duo Hale
and Pace – gives a sound performance as Buffalo Bill whose Wild West
Show first brings Annie and Frank together, but Ed Currie needs to work
on his Chief Sitting Bull accent. Costumes are excellent and the on-stage band,
under musical director Stephen Ridley, earn top marks. To 05.07.14 Paul Marston
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conceived and written by Dorothy Fields as a star vehicle for her friend
Ethel Merman and the role of Frank is always secondary, which, Donovan,
a well established musical theatre star, plays to perfection.