Helen Gallagher’s ‘Calamity’ Jane and Matt Tapp’s ‘Wild’ Bill Hickok in Joseph Rowntree Theatre Company’s Calamity Jane
ONE of the joys of York’s remarkable spread of theatre companies is the chance to catch the ever-widening span of acting talent in leading roles.
Helen Gallagher has performed in musicals since she was young, across Yorkshire, in Manchester and overseas in Seoul, South Korea. Now she takes the title role in Sophie Cooke’s production of Sammy Fain and Paul Francis Webster’s 1961 musical story of friendship, adventure, and romance, set against the backdrop of the American Western Frontier.
Alongside her is the towering Matt Tapp, who has played everything from a sailor to an asylum owner in amateur musicals for years, not least a Viking (no surprise there, given his heavy metal mane of hair and beard).
Here he takes on a “real challenge, but an amazing one” in his Joseph Rowntree Theatre Company debut as “Wild” Bill Hickok (soldier, scout, lawman, cattle rustler, gunslinger, gambler, showman and actor of the American Old West), here spelled ‘Hickock’ in the programme.
Gallagher’s ‘Calam’ and Tapp’s ‘Wild’ Bill are both superb leads in Cooke’s impressively well-drilled company, one that fills the stage to the gills with bright energy, fun, frills and bonhomie, choreographed with admirable precision and passion by Heather Stead and Rachel Shadman.
The Joseph Rowntree Theatre Company’s eighth fundraising show for the JoRo Theatre’s maintenance since 2017 is built on strong foundations: Cooke’s direction, so alive to the show’s romance, love of theatrical performance and balance of frivolity, femininity, feminism and competitive male swagger, in tandem with Martin Lay’s zestful musical direction of an 11-strong orchestra (featuring polymath James Robert Ball in yet another guise as trombonist).
Then add Stead’s choreography, maximising ensemble movement, Julie Fisher and Costume Crew’s costume designs and Eliza Rowley’s set design of a prettily refurbished cabin for Calamity and Katie Brown (Jennifer Jones) and an open-plan structure for the Golden Garter, the saloon run by Alex Schofield’s ever-harassed by perennially willing-to-please Henry Miller.
Charting the interlinked lives of the Deadwood City community in 1876, when everyone knows everyone’s business, Calamity Jane is suffused with colourful characters united by dreams of a better life. Not only the frontier-town folk and fort of soldiers, but also Jones’s Katie Brown, the dresser mistaken by Calamity Jane for Chicago singing sensation Adelaide Adams (Mollie Raine) when she promises Miller she will bring back Adelaide from the Windy City to perform at the saloon.
Gallagher’s sharp-shooting Calam’ (real name Martha Jane Canary) is as fast with her tongue as her gun, always in a rush, ready for the rough and tumble, a no-nonsense tomboy, but with a romantic heart held in check beneath the bravado.
She sings delightfully too, from The Deadwood Stage opener, through the exasperated Men! to Windy City and the ever-gorgeous My Secret Love. Best of all is her Act Two opening duet with Jones’s Katie, A Woman’s Touch.
Tapp’s ‘Wild’ Bill has bags of stage presence too, matched by his assured singing, whether in his I Can Do Without You duet with Calamity or his ‘big number’, Higher Than A Hawk.
At the heart of Calamity Jane is the love interest, played with a lightness of touch by Gallagher’s Calamity, who’s in love with Adam Gill’s upstanding but very forward Lt Danny Gilmartin, who’s fallen in love with Jones’s Katie, the new apple of the eye of Tapp’s ‘Wild’ Bill. Such a merry-go-round of the heart is delightfully daft and yet deftly played.
Sadie Sorensen’s Susan blossoms in the story’s other romance with Tom Menarry’s Francis Fryer, the Chicago act booked mistakenly (as Miss Frances Fryer) by Miller. Menarry is a particular joy in drag for Hive Full Of Honey, while Raine revels in Adelaide’s moment in the spotlight , It’s Harry I’m Planning To Marry.
From Emily Hawkins’ poster designs to Scenery Solutions’ backcloth for the Black Hills Of Dakota, this Calamity Jane is spot on in every way.
Joseph Rowntree Theatre Company in Calamity Jane, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, 7.30pm tonight and 2.30pm (last few tickets) and 7.30pm tomorrow. Box office: 01904 501935 or https://www.josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk/whats-on/musical/calamity-jane/2830.