Venue Cymru, Llandudno, 26-30th August 2025 and touring
(5 / 5)
Jamie Wilson productions, Kevin McCollum, Gavin Kalin productions, evolution productions, Tilted, Willette & Manny Klausner in association with Grace street creative group and David & Hannah Mirvish. A Watermill Production.
Calamity Jane. They’ve turned the legend of a gun totin’, liquor swillin’ girl masquerading as a man into a love story. The actual events of Calam’s life are based in fact, but have been exaggerated, not least by the woman herself. However, we should not let our quest for reliable history get in the way of a rattling good story which is what this musical is.
Calamity Jane breezes into a Deadwood saloon having guarded the stagecoach safely into town. On the coach is Francis Fryer, an entertainer. Sadly, he does not possess the attributes desired by a hard living audience that has been starved of female company. He is a man. When the saloon owner nearly causes a riot trying to fool the waiting crowd that Francis is actually a woman, Calam goes to Chicago to tempt a music hall star, Adelaid Adams to come to Deadwood. As befits her name, she makes a disastrous mistake and brings back her maid, Katie Brown. However, Katie turns out to be a roaring success and settles with Calam in her run down shack and brings out the more feminine sides to her hosts character. The two women then become love rivals for an army lieutenant, Danny, before Calam realises that her love for her long time companion and critic, Wild Bill Hickok is mutual and Katie is free to marry her soldier.
Carrie Hope Fletcher is great as Calamity, commanding the stage with her presence. She is ably supported by Seren Sandham-Davies as Katie, Samuel Holmes as Francis and an understudy for Bill, Thomas Wolstenholme. The company provided plenty of warmth, energy, optimism and banter as the story unfolds into a quick placed drama. Scene changes were effected by moving props and this required some imagination, not least in the formation of a stage coach by the cast. The music gave a hoe down feel to the show and there were plenty of catchy numbers to go along with the iconic ‘whip crack away’ Deadwood stage song making this a feel good show.
There is some depth to this story. Bill Hickok repeatedly wants Calam to be more like a girl, but she is more comfortable wearing buckskin leathers, carrying a six gun and earning the right to be accepted in this hostile culture on her own merit. However, most of her compatriots drool over the suggestive temptress that is Adelaid Adams. Herein is a spectrum of femininity and surely there is a place for all along that line. A woman should be free to be who she wants to be. Men need not be threatened by a physically strong, aggressive woman and should not expect a woman’s best qualities to lie in her appearance. Not a bad lesson to come from a good nights entertainment.
In one sense the story is a throwback to watching Rawhide or the Virginian on TV for those of us with long memories. We now know that the entertainment industry has sanitised and romanticised stories of the wild west. The reality was more raw and brutal than we have been led to expect, not least to the surrounding Native American Indian cultures that were often dispossessed quite violently. However, this is just a story based on the life of a remarkable individual and if a story is a good one, it is worth telling and by the audience reaction, this musical is certainly that. A raucous, enthusiastic reception was given to a deserving cast after a sparking show.
