Interviews

WOS TV: Up Close With … Jane Horrocks & Julian Ovenden

Jane Horrocks and Julian Ovenden star as Annie Oakley and Frank Butler in the Young Vic’s new revival of Irving Berlin’s 1946 Broadway musical classic Annie Get Your Gun, which opens this week.

Set in Ohio in 1912, Annie Get Your Gun focuses on loud-mouthed gunslinger Annie, and Frank, her sharp-shooting rival and love interest, who battle it out for a place in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show.


Berlin wrote the lyrics and music – with now-classic songs including “There’s No Business Like Show Business”, “Doing What Comes Naturally” and “Anything You Can Do (I Can Do Better)” – for the musical, which has a book by Herbert and Dorothy Fields. It premiered on Broadway in 1946, famously starring Ethel Merman as Annie. In 1950 it was made into a film starring Betty Hutton and Howard Keel. The stage musical last ran in the West End at the Prince of Wales Theatre in 1992.

Jane Horrocks’ last musical was Sam Mendes’ Donmar Warehouse revival of Cabaret in 1994. She also created the title role in The Rise and Fall of Little Voice on stage and screen, while her other theatre credits include Aunt Dan and Lemon and, last year at the Young Vic with Annie Get Your Gun director Richard Jones, Brecht’s The Good Soul of Szechuan.

Julian Ovenden starred in last year’s premiere of Marguerite, for which he was Whatsonstage.com Award nominated. His other musical credits include Merrily We Roll Along and Grand Hotel at the Donmar Warehouse.


Annie Get Your Gun runs from 16 October 2009 (previews from 3 October) to 2 January 2010 at the Young Vic.

** DON’T MISS our Whatsonstage.com Outing to ANNIE GET YOUR GUN
on 22 October 2009
– inc a FREE programme & EXCLUSIVE
post-show Q&A with Horrocks & Ovenden
– all for
only £29.50!! – click here to book now! **