Brighton Year-Round 2025

Calamity Jane

Jamie Wilson Productions and The Watermill

Genre: Adaptation, Comedy, Historical, LGBTQ+ Theatre, Live Music, Mainstream Theatre, Musical Theatre, Theatre

Venue: Theatre Royal Brighton

Festival: Brighton Year-Round

Low Down

Review

Calamity Jane, playing at Theatre Royal Brighton till April 5^th, is a creaky feelgood with two great (one heartstopping) songs and four very good ones. Which disguises Warner’s 1953 film snatching themes from Oklahoma, South Pacific (well originally no extra dames) and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. And then there’s Carrie Hope Fletcher in the title role in this two-hour-fifteen romp.

With themes of LGBTQ+ straining at the misogynist 1950s, and written around Doris Day, what can a modern production do? Play straight, go ironic, or just wink? With occasionally incandescent music by Sammy Fain, lyrics by Paul Francis Webster and Philip J Lang’s clunky book, Calamity Jane became a musical in 1961 adapted by Charles K Freeman from James O’Hanlon’s screenplay. And there’s six more songs not featured in the film (20 altogether). Originally directed by Nikolai Foster, this outing’s co-directed and choreographed by Nick Winston. And you can tell it’s a choreographer leading this. Best not sit in the stalls though.

The great innovation here is Catherine Jayes’ re-orchestrating the instruments from pit to stage, so members of the cast play violins, cello, bass, twirling with an assortment of brass directed by Christopher Mundy. It’s as thrilling as the singing, and the great reason to see this production. That, and Carrie Hope Fletcher who cuts through all of them.

Matthew Wright’s large traditional set (too large for this theatre, adroitly handled) makes good use of an interior western theatre/exterior town, with balconies the musicians often perform on. It’s lit with an occcasional touch of magic by Tim Mitchell, and Ben Harrison’s sound design gives warm colour but leaves a few voices unclear.

Fletcher inhabits Calamity without guying her, accents her without ever shrouding her own enormous clarity, so you hear every word. She’s funny, sassy, vulnerable and when she sings that great heart-breaking number towards the end of the show, ‘Secret Love’ so much a coded anthem, she injects guttural bass-notes to make it authentically Jane. Fletcher lights up everything she’s in, but here enjoys the give-and-take of a superb ensemble.

Vinny Coyle as Wild Bill Hickok has a very fine voice, wiry character with a  dangerous edge, and wilder dancing legs: Bill like Jane is confused. They really love each other but each fall for someone else. Jane’s already gone for local fort lieutenant Danny Gilmartin (an appealingly sensitive Luke Wilson), whereas Gilmartin and Hickok are both wowed by Seren Sandham-Davies’ Katie Brown. As well they might be, as Sandham-Davies fills the stage with both warmth in her exchanges and Cabaret-worthy performances in her routines. A real discovery.

The plot had begun with Jane’s uncle theatre-owner Henry Miller (Peter Peverley, delicious, permanently terrified) who finds his new star Francis Fryer (Samuel Holmes) is a man, in a woman-starved town. Holmes is one of the stand-outs of the evening: unfailingly funny, a delirious dancer, and rather gun-shy! A dress doesn’t cut it, but he teams up with pianist local Susan (quick-witted Hollie Cassar) to make up a third couple.

Calamity swears she’ll fetch worldwide star Adelaid Adams, here seen (if you’re anywhere but the stalls) in Molly-Grace Cutler’s sassy sexy blaze of ‘Tis Harry I’m Planning to Marry’ (which makes sixth on my list of memorable songs). But Adelaid’s not planning on staying around, and when Calamity mistakes her maid Katie for Adelaid, well Katie has singing and explaining to do. The rest is erotic confusion. After the inciting ‘Deadwood Stage’ with that famous refrain (“whip crack-away”), the next standout  is ‘Just Blew in From the Windy City’ with its “they ain’t got what we got”.

Richard Lock interacts with the audience as hapless coachman Rattlesnake, with a burring beard that reaches out to the second row and real verve on the banjo. Here though and elsewhere you feel direction shifts too much to parody. No reflection on the energetic Lock though, with his terrific bass-notes.

The original misogyny’s been filleted a little but don’t you just wish for an ambiguous moment when Calamity takes Katie back to the cabin as ‘chaperone’ when there’s quite a few women milling around anyway? The most cringeworthy song ‘A Woman’s Touch’ is despite its horrible lyrics one of the best numbers; though ‘Black Hills of Dakota’ tops it. It’s here not sung by Fletcher alone as Day had it, but ensemble (who reprise it anyway). But then of course there’s ’Secret Love’ which Fletcher smashes both lyrically and in character. This is frankly heart-stopping and my scepticism over reanimating this period piece was finally blown away for good.

And though not all the additional numbers are that strong, the six-hit-rate’s arguably better than for instance the more believable Guys and Dolls, with its two, maybe three memorable numbers. Let alone most new musicals. It’s what this production does though with the musical cast that makes this production stand repetition of a Hollywood vehicle that – unlike Broadway – swallowed the 1950s back-to-basics reaction: the barriers-down 1940s was such a bad role-model for women.

Though occasionally obscured, there’s fine work from Ben Mabberley’s Hank and Harry, Fergus Murphy’s anxious Joe and brushed-aside Stage Door Keeper, Tomas Wolstenholme’s Buck, and the other musicians: Claire Greenway apart from being Doc is the assistant Musical Director fronting on violins, and Lara Lewis, Emma Jane Morton (Dance Captain too), Theo Diedrick, Jacob Leeson (also Fight and Guitar Captain), Stephen Scott Stark and James Wycherley on drums and percussion are a memorable band.

See this for the onstage musicians and above all Carrie Hope Fletcher giving Calamity soul as well as heart. Highly recommended.

Associate Set and Costume Designer Diego Pitarch, Props Supervisor Jamie Owens @ Lilyprops, Costume Supervisor Jennie Falconer, Louise Nipper, Sarah Banbury, Wigs, Hair & Makeup Designer Campbell Young Associates, Casting Director Debbie O’Brien CDG, Associate Director and Choreographer Megan Louch, Production Manager Dan Kay

Published April 2, 2025April 2, 2025 by Simon Jenner