Review: Calamity Jane at the Liverpool Empire ****

Some musicals start on stage and migrate to the big screen – and some begin as films and have an afterlife in the theatre.

Calamity Jane falls into the latter category, being Warner Brothers’ Technicolor riposte to MGM’s Annie Get Your Gun and which made a proper star out of a bright eyed, rosy-cheeked Doris Day.

The stage musical version followed a few years later and received its British premiere in 1974 with, fun fact, Liverpool’s own Lynda La Plante as the titular frontierswoman.

This Watermill Theatre revival of its own 2014 production, deftly directed by Nikolai Foster, last blew into the windy city of Liverpool a decade ago with Jodie Prenger riding shotgun in fringed deerskin.

Now it’s back starring musicals royalty Carrie Hope Fletcher, who is delightfully effervescent as the gosh-darn-shucks Deadrock damsel-in-no-dress who swaggers around with a gun at her hip and a tall story on her lips.

With black hills, prairies and stagecoaches a bit ambitious for a travelling show, all the action instead unfolds against a backdrop of Deadwood’s Golden Garter Saloon, and my, Matthew Wright’s sepia-toned set sure is mighty pretty.

Framed by a gold surround, it evokes the cabinet card photographs of the period – an evocation intensified by Tim Mitchell’s candescent lighting design.

Above: The cast of Calamity Jane. Top: Carrie Hope Fletcher (centre) as Calam. Photos by Mark Senior.

The stage is set, literally, for the hoopla and shenanigans of James O’Hanlon’s amusing plot (adapted for the stage by Charles K Freeman) with a boisterous Fletcher and a fine voiced Vinny Coyle as Calamity’s laconic sparring partner Wild Bill Hickok ably leading a posse of talented quadruple threats who simultaneously act, dance, sing and play the show's cracking score on a wide variety of musical instruments.

They also engineer smart switches between scenes, from Deadwood to ‘Chicagy’ and saloon to Calamity’s rustic cabin.

Above: Vinny Coyle as Wild Bill Hickok. Photo by Mark Senior.

Seren Sandham-Davies previously appeared at the Empire as Cynthia Weill in Beautiful (incidentally alongside fellow Calamity Jane cast member Molly-Grace Cutler, now playing weary, sneery Adelaid Adams). Here Sandham-Davies sparkles as Katie Brown, the out-of-town ingenue who captures the heart of Calamity’s crush Lt Danny Gilmartin (Luke Wilson).

Wilson himself is somewhat shortchanged as Gilmartin, the character making an occasional and mostly peripheral appearance. When he does get some proper stage time however, he showcases a fine singing voice.

Chapeau also to the banjo-playing Richard Lock as the comical Rattlesnake, who hides a lovely basso profundo beneath an impressively bushy beard.

The story bowls along as though it’s being chased by a gang of bandits, although it does mean that some scenes are fleeting – notably Calam’s Cinderella moment at the Deadwood dance which is frustratingly ‘blink and you miss it’.

All in all though, this Calamity Jane remains a hugely enjoyable, rootin’, tootin’, sharp-shootin’ production.