YOU tend to believe you’ve seen Anything Goes somewhere. The opening lyrics ‘In olden days a glimpse of stocking was looking on as something shocking’ are so familiar, you must have watched the movie version one wet Sunday afternoon. Perhaps. But you haven’t seen this version.
Despite the high points there are problems with the show. It doesn’t quite know what it wants to be
Billy Crocker (Matt Rawle), a wannabe stockbroker, but currently broke fixer to the wealthy Elisha Whitney (Simon Rouse) escorts his boss to board luxury liner SS American. Spotting Hope Harcourt (Zoe Rainey), a woman he briefly met and fell instantly in love with, he decides to stow away and dissuade her from marrying the English aristocrat Lord Evelyn Oakleigh (Stephen Matthews) who is also on board. The happy couple are travelling to their English wedding. Add Public Enemy Number 13 Moonface Martin (Shaun Williamson) and Reno Sweeney (Debbie Kurup), a good friend and one of the many women apparently in love with Billy to the passenger list and you have plenty of opportunities for disguise, misunderstandings and mirth.
Cole Porter wrote the songs, so as well as Anything Goes with its glimpses of stockings we have more delicious lyrics and delightful tunes in I Get A Kick Out of You, You’re the Top, It’s De-Lovely and others less familiar.
The fairly standard love story - love triumphs as a man trading on hope and possible prospects wins his love back from the wallet of a richer man to whom impending poverty has driven her - is fleshed out with plenty of themes current at the time of writing: the media hunger for celebrity, business hunger for celebrity customers, criminals as celebrity, love versus lust, and the aphrodisiac of wealth.
Luxury liners were quite a thing in the 1930s. Prohibition had helped the trend and shipping companies, seeing their market hit by new immigration controls, had seen an opportunity to relaunch their product, providing leisure cruises for the rich and famous, using celebrity passengers and the opportunity to get smashed as enticement to widen the passenger list.
This particular boat has sailed across the Pennines, with the touring production of Anything Goes being the most recent of Sheffield Crucible’s well-received Christmas musicals, directed by Daniel Evans and choreographed by Alistair David.
With a huge cast of 26, the strongest sections are the ensemble work. Ensemble singing throughout is rather beautiful, with depth and stunning harmonies. Anything Goes, the closing number of Act One, is superbly danced by all, led by a stunning song and cookie-dance performance from Debbie Kurup.
Zoe Rainey and Matt Rawle make a sweet couple, and their rendition of the best of the unfamiliar songs, All Through The Night, a rather mournful love number, gives glimpses of greater depths. Kate Anthony, formerly Auntie Pam in Corrie, is well-hidden in the matronly garb of Hope’s mother. Stephen Matthews has strong audience appeal, particularly in his transformation when performing The Gypsy in Me in shorts and gaiters.
My favourite is Shaun Williamson as major criminal Moonface Martin (aka Public Enemy no 13), whose timing and body language hold the stage whenever he appears but who is criminally underused and given a song Be Like The Blue Bird which certainly uses his acting skills, but is distinctly unmemorable as a tune.
Despite the high points there are problems with the show. It doesn’t quite know what it wants to be: madcap comedy, farce, love story, mild satire on wealth, celebrity and marketing. At eighty years old, a number of the references need help, and the stock characters and stereotypes are a little too much, even for the forgiving nature of a musicals audience. The closing number of Act One is fabulous, but it raises the question of why, if they can dance like that, they didn’t do it sooner. The rhythms of the earlier songs lead you to expect what we’ve come to call an ‘American Smooth’, but apparently it was written as a tap-dance show, and in any case this production’s stepped stage, great for showcasing a tap-dancing chorus, leaves little room for the sweep of the foxtrot. We’ve been spoilt by the versatility of film sets allowing Astaire and Rogers to perform a range of styles.
Apparently, Anything Goes has been filmed twice, once starring Bing Crosby and Ethel Merman, but with a hugely altered song list, and a second time, also starring Bing Crosby, but with Donald O’Connor and completely altered plot and characters.
It seems that even Hollywood struggled with this show, despite the quality of the main songs.
Anything Goes is at The Opera House until Sat 18 Apr.
