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Act I
This musical is produced as a show within a show, a production being staged for the troops at a US Army entertainment centre. Throughout the action there are soldiers occupying tables at the sides of the stage watching the show and occasionally taking part.
The action begins with Buffalo Bill's travelling show seeking accomodation at Foster Wilson's boarding house. He refuses to allow them to stay and is not swayed when the shows manager, Charlie Davenport, challenges him to find a local sharpshooter to compete against the show's star marksman, Frank Butler. Then Annie arrives, looking to sell some of the game she has shot. Wilson is impressed by her collection of kills and by her confidence in her shooting prowess. He enrols her to shoot against Frank in the contest which she promptly wins, and is thereupon offered a part in the show. Annie has already become besotted with Frank and eagerly accepts the offer in order to be close to him.
Annie realises that her rough hillbilly ways are not attractive to Frank but hopes she can become more ladylike so that he will come to love her. In time it is clear her plan has worked, and Frank has indeed fallen for her giving Annie hopes of marriage. But then disaster strikes, the show comes into direct competition with Pawnee Bill's rival show which has opened in the next town. Buffalo Bill and Davenport encourage Annie to perform the special trick she has been working on and give her star billing. It works, the show is a great success. Chief Sitting Bull, who to the show to see Annie, is so impressed that he takes her as his adopted daughter and christens her 'Watanya Cecilia', "little sure shot". But Annie's triumph is tinged with tragedy, Frank is humiliated and leaves to join the rival show, leaving Annie abandoned and alone.
Act II
The show has been on a European tour and are now on a ship returning to New York harbour. Although the tour was a critical success, the expenses have been enormous and the show is left bankrupt. Pawnee Bill sends a messenger inviting the company to a reception at the hotel Brevoort. Learning that Pawnee's show has been playing at Madison Square Gardens, Bill and Davenport believe it must have become a great success and hatch a plan to save their own show by merging with Pawnee's. At the party it is Pawnee who raise the question of a merger and it transpires that he has the same motive, his show is also struggling and he has assumed Buffalo's show has returned rich. Both shows appear doomed until Annie volunteers to sell the many valuable gold medals she was presented with on the tour to refinance the new joint venture. She just wants to keep them for Frank to see first.
Frank arrives, it is quickly clear that neither he nor Annie have forgotten their love and he proposes. Frank offers Annie a medal he has won while she was away but is stupified when she removes her wrap to reveal her bodice so covered with medals far grander than his that there is barely a space for it. Pride again rears its head, and the two get into an argument of who is the best shot, which can only be settled by another shooting contest. Dolly Tate, Frank's assistant, tries to tamper with Annie's gun so that she will lose the contest but is discovered by Davenport and Sitting Bull. Sitting Bull realises however, that if Annie wins the contest she will lose her true love. So we come to the contest, how will it end? Will Annie lose the contest or lose her man? It appears she cannot have both.
With a relatively small cast and simple but effective sets this was hardly a lavish spectacular on a broadway scale. But the action is fast paced, the dialogue is oftentimes genuinely funny, and whatever the cast may have lacked in numbers they certainly made up for in enthusiasm. Furthermore, all the classic songs were there: "Doing what comes nat-rallee", "The Girl that I Marry", "You can't get a man with a gun", "There's no business like show business" and of course "Anything you can do I can do better" to name but a few. The side story of a love between Dolly Tate's sister and a half-indian knife thrower, which Dolly was determined to break up, added extra interest to the plot as well as providing the shows two best song and dance numbers.
Rebecca Thornhill in the title role has a magnificent singing voice with an impressive range. She carried the role well with her comic hillbilly accent and hick mannerisms. Steven Houghton (Greg Blake in "London's Burning") also has a great singing voice although his portrayal of Frank had a strong Elvis influence which in my mind was not best suited to the role. Charles Lawson (Jim McDonald from "Coronation Street") absolutely looked the part as Buffalo Bill. He had little musical input which is perhaps just as well since he looked a little uncomfortable when he did. Corinna Powlesland was wonderfully comic as Dolly Tate with a high pitched drawling nasal accent. David Burrows as Davenport, Joshua Bancel as Sitting Bull, and Simon Clark in the dual role of Foster Wilson and Pawnee Bill all gave creditable performances. Worthy of special mention were Sarah O'Gleby and Peter Tyler as the young lovers Winnie Tate and Tommy Keeler, whose ensemble backed song and dance routine to "Who do you love I hope" was for me the highpoint of the show. Last but not least, the twelve strong ensemble worked tirelessly in some impressive and energetic dance routines.
More a Derringer pocket pistol than a Winchester rifle, but ultimately worth a shot.