TheatreguideLondon
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Calamity Jane
Shaftesbury Theatre Spring 2003

Calamity Jane is a perky little puppy of a show that wants nothing more than to bounce around, chase its tail and let you love it. It is so good-spirited that criticising it (and I suppose I'll have to before I'm done) is as pointless and curmudgeonly as refusing to pet that puppy because it's not purebred enough.

Based on a forgettable 1953 Doris Day movie, the show tells of innocent confusions and romance in the Wild West, centering on a romantic quadrangle. Tomboy Jane is constantly feuding with Wild Bill Hickok but soft on Calvary Lieutenant Danny, while both men have fallen for Katie, the new saloon singer in town. I won't spoil the ending or surprise you when I report that Jane eventually puts on a dress and she and Bill get together, leaving the other couple to join the double wedding.

The movie had only a half-dozen songs by Sammy Fain and Paul Francis Webster, so the show has added a few more out of their catalogue. While only the Oscar-winning Secret Love is really of much merit, Windy City (a blatant rip-off of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Kansas City) has been turned into a rousing dance number, and the others are pleasant enough.

The big attraction and dynamic engine of the show is star Toyah Willcox. The pop singer, actress and occasional Teletubbies voice is onstage almost continuously, drawing on reserves of perkiness that could light up a medium-sized city. She sings while driving a stagecoach, she sings while lying on the floor, she sings while cracking a whip, she sings while hanging from the rafters, and if she ever actually stops smiling, I missed the moment. While so much sparkling could become annoying in a less personable and good-natured a performer, you can't help but give in and just enjoy the show with her.

Michael Cormick and Garry Kilby are appropriately handsome and manly as the love interests, though Kellie Ryan seems to have been cast as Katie with an eye toward making sure she never threatened the star, either in appearance or singing.

Director Ed Curtis keeps everything bouncing along, and choreographer Craig Revel Horwood borrows wisely, openly quoting both Michael Kidd and Bob Fosse in his high-energy dance numbers.

It isn't Hamlet. It isn't My Fair Lady or even Mamma Mia, but it doesn't pretend to be. It wants to be a nice, simple, fun-for-the-whole-family show, and it succeeds engagingly.

Gerald Berkowitz

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Review - Calamity Jane - Shaftsbury 2003