Calamity Jane, loosely based on real characters but placed in a sugary sweet wild west, is not the greatest musical but it does have somee really good songs in it and can certainly be a lot of fun. Add to that the Watermill's penchant for multi-instrumentalist actors and fast-paced productions and I was quietly looking forward to this. Well,it certainly wasn't a calamity (see what I did there!) but somehow it just didn't hang together.
The production is inventive and both the stage design and the structure reminded me strongly of the Watermill style - but somehow it doesn't have the same impact when in a large theatre as it does in their own beautiful and intimate space - I seem to remember that the transfer of their Sweeney Todd suffered the same way. This is a very talented cast, as is usual, and even Jodie has a spell on the spoons, but somehow seeing Wild Bill tapping away at a cow bell eats into his macho reputation. The sound they produce is, however, rich and clean - impressive. I did find the words of the early songs hard to hear .. still, there's no significant content there so no real loss ;-)
Jodie was everything you expect of a Calamity Jane but why was her make up modelled on Aunt Sally? I would have preferred the direction to be a little less "musical theatre" ... we do not need you to face front when you speak to a room of people upstage of you and we do not need a wink to the audience ... but I guess that the script does point towatrds a lightweight interpretation ... ho hum
The audience in Bristol is known to give a standing ovation at the drop of a hat ... it didn't though people did stand for the now apparently obligitory juke box reprieve - the audience mostly left happy .... that's a good thing right?!
A final note on the audience. This was not a sing-a-long so why did you? Start time was 7:30pm, do try and turn up on time, especially if your conversation is too important to await the interval. And TURN OFF YOUR PHONE ... for goodness sake, is it really that difficult?
