A picturesque setting of sweet-smelling lavender fields is home to the latest addition of the UK’s al fresco entertainment venues – the 250-seat Lavender Theatre in Epsom, which opened last weekend for its inaugural summer season of plays and musicals with Irving Berlin’s Annie Get Your Gun. Open to the vagaries of Mother Nature, who was in a sulk, it was a dismal and dank afternoon where intermittent rainfall delayed the start and “pauses” in the show to allow for excess water to be pushed off the wooden set and at the interval allow for a “re-assessment” of the audience seating area. Neither of which filled me with much confidence, but to their credit, they did all they could to make sure the show must go on, and it did.
As they squished and squelched onto the set, the opening number There’s No Business Like Show Business immediately brought a smile to my face knowing that it was written as a tongue-in-cheek salute to the glamour and excitement of a life in show business. A wet welcome soon blossomed into a show of enthusiastic and zestful Wild West spirit as Buffalo Bill (Elliot Broadfoot) and his posse of idiosyncratic characters arrived in town to put on a show to woo and wow the locals. They are a swell bunch and doing fine but missing the spark that will attract investment and more bucks for Bill. A serendipitous meeting with young Annie Oakley (SuRie), a local gun-slinging gal, changes everything. A sharpshooter who can shoot birds out of a tree and cigars out of hands, she astounds everyone when she beats Frank Butler (Charlie McCullagh) – hitherto Bill’s star attraction – in a shooting contest. They fall in love etcetera which all sounds very schmaltzy. Not in this production.
Simon Hardwick, who directs, choreographs and co-designs, comes up with a show that is an updated retelling of Annie’s story as well as removing some of the overtly racist elements of the show. A simple wink and smirk from a self-deprecating Sitting Bull does that job. Unable to read and write, simple but savvy, Annie soon assumes the mantle of star attraction and Frank knows he has met his match in every way. Their matching up is encapsulated in two beautiful Berlin songs – You Can’t Get A Man With A Gun and My Defenses Are Down. Despite the weather, I warmed to the production the longer it went on. SuRie puts in a melodious street-fighting shift as Annie even though her accent wavered a little, while McCullagh transitions well from a spunky gunslinger into a smitten Frank. The musicians, sheltering under minimum cover, played excellently. Indeed the whole company displayed stoical determination and talent and despite my increasingly sodden and chilly state, during their fully deserved ovation I too took my cowboy hat off to them. There really is no business like open air business.
Meanwhile it was another Tuesday night special last week at The Adelphi with 80s Live! Five cracking singers, a boisterous band and hits aplenty from the decade of Culture Club, Wham!, Madonna, Whitney, Duran Duran and many more. They hit the ground running, sometimes wearing fancy dress costumes (including the audience), but we cared little as they banged out all the hits and more. Each one triggering a excitable response from the kid adult audience, there to party and have fun. Why not when you have songs like It’s Raining Men, Video Killed the Radio Star, Like a Virgin and Venus. My companion sang most of the songs boasting an incredible memory for lyrics while also executing wicked dance moves. We were all encouraged to do so by the vocalists who did a great job of establishing an immediate rapport with Sid Sims an engaging compère who is a wicked keyboardist and delivered a mean Ska medley. These one-off “specials” look like they are here to stay and after this you can see why.
Annie Get Your Gun – www.lavendertheatre.com
80s Live! Future dates – www.entertainers.co.uk/show/80slive