Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (tour)

Note: This review dates from August 2001 and the start of this production’s UK tour. For current casting and performance information, please click here.

If you’re looking forward to an undemanding, fun evening of old fashioned, musical theatre, then this is for you. Seven Brides is the sort of show that fits like an old slipper – safe, comfortable, and reassuringly nostalgic. Melodic tunes run amok, and the dance routines are performed well enough to make you forget that some of the hoofers appear to be only just out of school.

The appeal of gun-totting pioneers seems to have an enduring interest among theatre and moviegoers. Needless to say, this show is based on the much-loved film musical of the early 1950s, adapted for the stage in 1982 with additional songs. In the UK it toured in the ‘80s and played briefly in the West End. This production directed by Maurice Lane, plays at a crack-a-jack pace, leaving little time to ponder the unlikely plot premise.

In the mid 1800s, seven brothers living in the Oregon mountains decide to look for wives. Encouraged by the efforts of the eldest (Adam Pontipee, played by Sam Kane) in attracting a spouse after a five minute courtship, they go into town and kidnap a girl each. An avalanche causes them to be trapped in their cabin until the spring, during which time – you’ve guessed it – all ends in happiness, babies and wedding bells.

Surprisingly, this prettily set production is a fair replication of the movie. All the old songs (including ‘Bless Your Beautiful Hide’, and ‘Wonderful Wonderful Day’) are there although some of them seem to be rather thrown away in performance, in favour of the newer numbers. No matter, for these (by Al Kasha and Joel Hirshorn) are equally good, particularly Sam Kane’s performance of ‘A Women Ought To Know Her Place’, and the duet with his wife Millie (Shona Lindsay) in ‘Love Never Goes Way’. The central dance piece of the film was the barn raising, a competition dance between the brothers and the townsmen for the affection of the women. Choreographer Adrian Allsopp does a good job in emulating Michael Kidd’s original routine. In this show, everybody sings, dances and acts.

Kane is a commanding Adam and has a fine singing voice, as does Lindsay, a veteran of Phantom of the Opera. She brings a nice combination of spunkiness and femininity to Millie, a part in which tweeness has, in the past, not been unknown. This is not a show that stretches anyone, but in the smaller parts, Joe Smith as Gideon, impresses with a fetching vulnerability and all the brothers and their brides sing and dance their socks off.

I guarantee you’ll leave with a smile on your face and a song on your lips.

Stephen Gilchrist (reviewed at Bromley Churchill Theatre)