Paul Francis Webster, Sammy Fain, James O’Hanlon
Jamie Wilson Productions
Opera House, Manchester
21-25 January, 2025: 2 hours 20 minutes
Also at Sunderland Empire (Feb 4-8), Leeds Grand Theatre (Mar 4-8), Liverpool Empire (April 22-26), York Grand Theatre (April 29-May 3), Sheffield Lyceum (June 10-14), Blackpool Opera House (June 24-28), Hull New Theatre (July 22-26), Llandudno Venue Cymru (August 26-30), Bradford Alhambra Theatre (September 2-6).
The Deadwood stage comes a-rollin’ over the plains right on time, 10 years on. Yes, it’s a decade since Calamity Jane last played Manchester. It was a great show then, and it remains so now.
It’s the Watermill Theatre production, which after its start in Berkshire in 2014 rapidly moved to a national tour (with Jodie Prenger in the title role). This time Manchester is at the start of another big tour, with the show destined ultimately for the West End.
The way the Watermill has become famous for doing things, is by putting on stage performers who can sing, dance and play instruments as their own band – sometimes all at the same time – in dazzling reworkings of classic musicals. It gives a touch of brilliance just to see so much talent up there, quite apart from filling the stage with movement and action, and I love it (remember their version of Sweeney Todd?).
This one is directed by Nikolai Foster, co-directed and choreographed by Nick Winston and features musical supervision by Catherine Jayes and sets and costumes by Matthew Wright.
It’s the inventiveness of the production that makes the fun. It is based on the 1953 Warner Brothers film, which starred Doris Day in the title role, though has a string of extra songs not in the film.
The crazy storyline (inspired by the equally unhistorical film of Annie Get Your Gun, made by MGM) supposes that Calamity Jane (who did exist: real name Martha Jane Canary) and Wild Bill Hickok are together responsible for keeping the rule of law (ie, the gun) in the Black Hills of Dakota – a lovely theme song for the whole show.
Calamity is a bit of an embroiderer (“She’s not exactly lying, but she’s careless with the truth”, as another song says). The theatre in Deadwood is desperate for a big East Coast star to visit, and Calamity finds one… only it's really just Katie, the big star’s maid. There’s a love tangle involving soldier boy Danny and the other three, but all ends happily.
The other big song in the show is Calamity’s Once I Had a Secret Love, but other lively numbers include I can Do Without You (a near-parallel to Anything You Can Do in Annie Get Your Gun), Keep it Under Your Hat (which here has some really nice acapella singing) and the rip-roaring Hoedown dance.
This was the second week of the tour, so nearly a Manchester Gets It First, and one or two technical things are still to be tightened up. But the cast is a quality team, not least Carrie Hope Fletcher as Calamity. Vinny Coyle is slightly surprisingly civilised as Wild Bill (but it is a tenor lead, after all), Luke Wilson (Danny) has a fine baritone voice, and Seren Sandham-Davies wins hearts as Katie.
More info and tickets here
