Now here’s a trip down Memory Lane. I was taken by my mum and dad to see the film when it first came out and all I can remember was being bored! I have just looked it up and the release date is 1954, but it would have been a bit later than that by the time it was shown at the Easy Road Picture House. Because of that experience I have given it a miss over the years, although have obviously seen excerpts on various TV shows. Seventy years on I now get to see the stage show, which made me feel anything but bored.
I think a lot of the success of this production lies in the casting. Doris Day had spent a career perfecting the sweet, innocent girl next door image, so seemed so out of place in buckskins on a stagecoach. Carrie Hope Fletcher, however, is a very accomplished West End actor who has been in shows as diverse as Cinderella and Les Misérables, so she slipped into this role with ease. Her rendition of Secret Love brought the house down. Vinny Coyle as Wild Bill Hickok, also made the role his own by not doing a Howard Keel impression, and performed one of his solos strumming along to his guitar.
Some of the cast in Miller’s Bar. Calamity Jane (Carrie Hope Fletcher), centre with Hollie Cassar as Susan and Richard Lock as Rattlesnake
The setting for the show is the prospecting town of Deadwood, miles from anywhere in the Black Hills of Dakota. As well as the gold hunters there is an army fort at which Lt. Gilmartin. played by Luke Wilson, is stationed, and for whom Calamity Jane is carrying a torch. She even tries to muscle Doc (Claire Greenaway) out of dressing a wound he has received whilst defending the town, so she can nurse him. All of the action takes place in the bar run by Henry Miller (Peter Peverley) which undergoes a few inventive changes to accommodate a stagecoach, a ballroom, a dressing room and even the great outdoors.
The bar is not doing great so Miller has decided to import a glamorous singer from Chicago to get the punters through the door. Sadly, his spelling is not A+ so he mistakenly engages the services of Francis Fryer, played by Samuel Holmes, as he doesn’t realise that the ‘i’ in Francis refers to the masculine version, rather than the feminine, which is an ‘e’. With a full house expected, Henry persuades Francis to do the gig in drag and pretend to be a woman. All is going well until his wig gets caught in the scenery and is pulled off, starting a bar brawl. Order is restored by Calamity, along with her revolver, who promises to go back to the Windy City and bring the most famous show performer in the country, Adelaide Adams (Molly-Grace Cutler) to Deadwood. Everyone, including Wild Bill, is sceptical and derides even the thought of her being able to pull the stunt off. Even after his less than friendly welcome, Francis decides to stay in town, having hooked up with Susan (Hollie Cassar), a local girl.
Up for the challenge, Calamity takes the stagecoach to Chi-town but inadvertently recruits, not Ms Adams, but her maid, Katie Brown (Seren Sandham-Davies). Hungry for stardom, even in a backwater like Deadwood, Katie pretends to be Adelaide, able to execute the deception, because all the customers have to identify the star is a faded cigarette card, the image of which is several years old. All is going well until Francis Fryer recognises her, having worked with her employer some years before.
Seren Sandham-Davies as Katie Brown wowing the crowd.
Having been unmasked, Katie plays the show with great success, and also catches the eye of Lt Gilmartin, much to the dismay of Calamity. After several songs, dances and acting episodes, Katie sneaks away to go back to Chicago and leave the Lieutenant and Calamity to their romance. Meanwhile, Jane and Wild Bill have turned their friendship into an affair and Calamity chases the stagecoach to turn it back to Deadwood. This she does and all ends happily ever after with the double wedding of Katie and Lt Gilmartin and Calamity and Wild Bill. Ahhhhh!
The show’s impact is not so much the story as the presentation. It was obvious we were in for a fun evening when Rattlesnake (Richard Lock) with resplendent beard and dungarees, looking like a cross between Walter Brennan and Seasick Steve, walked across the front of the stage gesticulating to the audience regarding the use of mobile phones, and proceeded to pick up a strategically placed banjo. As he slowly picked out the tune to The Black Hills of Dakota, with which some of the audience joined in, the curtains slowly opened to reveal the club full of characters, appropriately dressed. The speed of the tune increased somewhat and they all produced their instruments and joined in. Having the ‘orchestra’ doubling as characters was brilliant and gave the whole thing a casual air, making the transition from speech to song not as convoluted as it normally is. They were not too shabby at dancing either, nor at taking bit parts in the tale.
Wild Bill Hickok (Vinny Coyle) and Calamity Jane (Carry Hope Fletcher), having a ‘conversation’.
I have already referred to the set, which was a bar room with a stage at the back, the arch of which was mirrored in the arch of the ‘real’ stage. This obviously gave the perfect setting for the performance of the songs, both in the bar and also in the musical itself. In numbers such as The Deadwood Stage, the bar chairs were moved to form the stagecoach seats and the piano, which also, at various times, acted as a food cupboard, an oven and a store, was incorporated for use as the buckboard for Calamity, who rode shotgun, and the driver.
The Director, Nikolai Foster, has tried to keep the spirit of the film, which I thought made it seem fairly dated, with the fast talking comedy and eccentric gestures from the more minor characters – Rattlesnake seemed intent on stealing every scene, with his antics at the side of the stage during some of the set pieces. On reflection, I suppose that the Western as a genre is fairly dated nowadays. There were some amendments to reflect modern acceptable terminology, with the Lieutenant and his men being attacked by bandits, and a line in The Black Hills of Dakota changed to ‘the beautiful mountainous country that I love.’
There was some audience participation involved, some of which was possibly unplanned, but the music was so infectious it was only to be expected. The end gave everyone a chance to whoop and a-holler and slap their thigh, when, after the double wedding and the curtain call, the cast indulged in a hoedown, sending everyone home in a joyous frame of mind. The journey on the 36 bus home was certainly no match for a stage coach, and the passage through Alwoodley doesn’t really justify the expense of Calamity riding shotgun. I hope I haven’t tempted fate there!
Calamity Jane runs at Leeds Grand Theatre until Saturday, 8th March. For more details of the show and to book please go to https://leedsheritagetheatres.com/whats-on/calamity-jane-2025/
For further tour dates it is https://calamityjanemusical.com/#about-the-show
To see what is coming up at Leeds Heritage Theatres see https://leedsheritagetheatres.com/whats-on/
Feature image provided by Leeds Heritage Theatres. Photographs by Mark Senior
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