Calamity Jane

Synopsis

The Wild West's most famous heroine in a rip-roaring story. This musical is adapted from the celebrated stage-play and film. 'Calam' dresses like a man, totes a gun and drives the Deadwood City stagecoach. Well-meaning but disaster prone, she tries to help the local saloon proprietor out of a jam by promising to fetch a music-hall star from Chicago. An hilarious comedy, it nevertheless has many tender moments and some very famous numbers including 'Secret Love', 'Black Hills of Dakota', Deadwood Stage' and 'Windy City'.

Our Review:

27 June 2003

There's something about Calamity Jane that smells of the 1950s. When women were being exhorted to put their menfolk first and become homemakers, this slice of artificial American history would have been just the thing to reinforce the casual sexism of the times.

After all, a song stating that a "woman's touch" would be all that was needed to convert a ramshackle shack into what estate agents would now call a bijou cottage would have been accepted by both sexes. And of course, 1950s' audiences would have been blind to the lesbian undertones and slices of high camp of the piece.

However, as Ed Curtis's production decides to play the whole thing straight. It's as if 50 years of showbiz history has passed us by, and we're watching a piece of the past, without any post-modern touches. It's all curiously dated.

Sammy Fain and Paul Francis Webster's musical hasn't aged well either. Of course, "Secret Love" and "Deadwood Stage" are fine songs and ho...

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Latest User Review

USER: Whatsonstage.com (217.137.83.21) - 4 September 2003:

Its all petty rubbish apart from Michael Cormick who I think is BRILLIANTT!!!!! Hes the only reason I went anyway!...

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