Annie Get Your Gun

✭✭✭✩✩    Crack-shot Annie

Edinburgh Playhouse Tue 17 – Sat 21 June 2014

Annie Oakley, one of America’s first superstars, demonstrates at the Playhouse all this week that Anything You Can Do, she can do better.

The cast of Annie Get Your Gun

The new tour of Annie Get Your Gun attempts to bring the Irving Berlin classic production into the 21st Century.

Originally composed in the 1940s, the story is a fictionalised version of the life of Annie Oakley (Emma Williams), a sharpshooter in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West, and her romance with Frank Butler (Jason Donovan).

This production uses the 1999 revised version of the musical by Peter Stone, which tries to circumvent the insensitive references to American Indians and the subjugation of women to produce a politically correct version of the tale. It doesn’t quite succeed and the production feels like it has lost something special and endearing along the way.

The production struggles to balance Annie’s spark, independence and Doin’ What Comes Natur’lly with the outdated notion that You Can’t Get a Man with a Gun.

Annie falls in love with Frank with one glance and the rest of the musical is centred around their romance. What director Ian Talbot fails to effectively portray is the “why?”.

Missing is the original book and score’s element of swagger which showed Butler as a charming bad boy with just the right levels of confidence and arrogance to attract the ladies. In an attempt to make the show politically correct, there seems to be confusion over what Butler is supposed to be and he comes across as just a nice, if a little dull, guy.

In a critical moment, Butler professes that he went into the fight as a lion and came out like a lamb – well the lamb was there, but the lion never even left his den.

“a real sense of enthusiasm”

In a serious case of life imitating art, just as Annie outshines Frank in every possible way, so too Emma Williams outshines Jason Donovan. Williams brings a real sense of enthusiasm to the role – she plays a strong and feisty character, whose spark is only diminished slightly by the occasional interference from the male characters. Her performance is flawless and there is no trouble believing that she is the remarkable exhibition shooter that can do just about anything.

Emma Williams as Annie on the trapeze. Photo Alastair Muir

In contrast, Jason Donovan’s performance as Frank doesn’t quite hit the mark. The challenges of characterisation are only exacerbated by a lacklustre vocal performance where his voice fails to make the grade set so highly by Emma.

In fact, this is a common theme throughout this production, with the female cast easily outperforming the male cast. There are endearing and heart-warming performances from Kara Lane and Lorna Want as Dolly and Winnie Tate, but this too often serves to highlight the obvious uninspiring performances from the opposite gender.

The costumes and set are appropriately exuberant and decadent to show that There’s No Business Like Show Business. The enthusiastic dancing and ensemble work is both perfectly choreographed and visually fantastic, and the emergence of the talented musicians onto the stage in the second half of the show is a real treat that accentuates just how dynamic Buffalo Bill’s Wild West would have been.

The result is an enjoyable spectacle that entertains. Unfortunately though, on the whole, the production overshoots the mark and it’s not quite enough to put the spark back into what should be a great feel good musical.

Running time 2 hrs 30 mins (including interval)
Edinburgh Playhouse, 18 – 22 Greenside Place, Edinburgh, EH1 3AA
Tuesday 17 – Saturday 21 June 2014
Daily 7.30pm; Wed, Thurs, Sat 2.30pm.
Full details and tickets on the Playhouse website: www.atgtickets.com
Tour website: www.anniegetyourgunthemusical.com

ENDS

Tags: Annie Get Your Gun, Emma Williams, Jason Donovan, Kara Lane, Lorna Want, Musicals, Playhouse, Review, Susan Lowes