All musicals need at least two showstoppers, and Calamity Jane exceeds that bar with songs to spare.
Show opener The Deadwood Stage (Whip-Crack-Away) would be enough on its own for any self-respecting posse of musical theatre fans, but when you throw in the Oscar winning Secret Love, plus an utterly bonkers ahistorical plot, then it’s time to saddle up for a fun night out in Dakota’s Wild West.
Calamity Jane is a stagecoach driver in Deadwood where her sparring partner gunslinger Wild Bill Hickok helps keep the peace, and when a local saloon singer is unmasked as a drag act she hightails it to Chicago to persuade famed performer Adelaide Adams to come back to Deadwood. But the brash and excitable Calamity – who as the folk of Deadwood sing is Careless With The Truth – is aptly named as she brings back Adelaide’s maid, and much hilarity ensues before the tough backwoodswoman finds her true love.
All musicals are by their very nature a bit nuts, but the fast-paced comedy of Calamity Jane is completely deranged, and from the first bar of an inventively staged The Deadwood Stage Carrie Hope Fletcher is pitch perfect as the buckskinned rough diamond. Fletcher is West End royalty and runs with this iconic character as a role of a lifetime, offering a powerhouse rendition of the tricky Secret Love, and her comedy work is spot on. The late Doris Day would approve of her rootin’ tottin’ Calamity which Fletcher very much made her own.
Vinny Coyle as Will Bill Hickok is no Howard Keel – but then who is – so just makes the role his own with a reflective Higher Than A Hawk, and his duet on the bittersweet I Can Do Without You with Fletcher is nicely judged by both leads. Samuel Holmes is wonderfully camp as Francis Fryer as he bounces nicely off Hollie Cassar’s Susan, and Richard Lockwood gets plenty of laughs as Deadwood’s village idiot Rattlesnake.
A troupe of actor/musicians wander the big saloon set playing the big numbers, as well as the folksy interludes, subtly turning another banger The Black Hills of Dakota into a moving audience singalong, and it is astonishing how many of the audience knew all the words.
Despite the attempts by Nicolai Foster and Nick Winston to modernise this piece it remains a decidedly old fashioned musical where Calam and wannabe singer Katie sing the massively outdated A Woman’s Touch, despite some interesting undertones, and there remains too many references to ’female thinking’ for comfort. The creatives were right not to sanitise the production, but you can see why this show has not been on the road for a decade.
All that said it’s worth rounding up your own posse of musical fans for a night of warm-hearted old-school fun and enjoy some classic showtunes.
Calamity Jane is at Leeds Grand Theatre until Saturday 8th March 2025. Book online at www.leedsheritagetheatres.com or call the Box Office on 0113 243 0808.
Reviewer: Paul Clarke
Reviewed: 4th March 2025
North West End UK Rating:
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