"Calamity Jane" by Long Eaton Operatic Society (LEOS).

May Hall, Trent College, Long Eaton.

Yeehaaw! y'all. Calamity Jane, that tomboy cowgirl rolls into Long Eaton town and spreads fun and song, and just a little mischief in this "sky highest, smile widest, wild 'n' woosiest western musical of 'em all".

Set mainly in the bar room of The Golden Garter in Deadwood, the regulars want a performance from Adelaide Adams, the beauty depicted on the collectable cigarette cards of the time, and the object of everybody’s affections. Jane is going to ‘Chicargi’ to see her and bring her back with her, after the last act to play The Golden Garter, "Frances Fryer" actually turns out to be Francis Fryer, a male act who is definitely no replacement for the lovely Frances they had been expecting!

Jane is too late to catch Adelaide who has left to tour Europe, and due to a case of mistaken identity she asks Adelaide’s maid Katie, to return to Deadwood with her to perform at The Golden Garter. When Katie's cover is blown due to an onset of nerves, Katie wins over the crowd and stays in Deadwood, and in the process wins the heart of Lieutenant Danny Gilmartin away from Jane. Jealousy kicks in with Jane but there is a happy ever after in the end, for more than Jane.

Calamity Jane is played by Aimee Chilton, and what a transformation from tomboy to lady. Aimee injects real energy into her performance, as well as dollops of fun, especially when she regales us and the cast with tales of bravado but how "Careless With The Truth" is she?

Adelaide Adams, the idol of the cigarette cards, is played by Lisa Stone. Lisa only has a cameo part as Adelaide, who was the Taylor Swift of her day, according to the adoration poured over her by the Deadwood men. There's an aura of Marilyn Monroe in Lisa's performance which I enjoyed immensely.

Becky Morley plays Katie Brown,  a lovely fun character to play, and dresser to Adelaide. Katie fancies herself as a singer, but in the shadow of the beloved Adelaide, and when Jane comes a calling for Adelaide, who had left the theatre after her performance in the show, Katie saw her opportunity to shine. Unfortunately, her guise was spotted by someone and her real identity revealed. That was not a bad thing though in this story! 

Adam Worton plays Wild Bill Hickok. You know how I sometimes praise the folk who deal with wigs, make up etc, well here's another opportunity for me to do that. I would never have spotted Adam with the black wig and moustache and beard. Adam is an under-rated singer; just listen to his rendition of "Higher Than Hawk" and his duet version of "Secret Love".

Lieutenant Danny Gilmartin is played by Jack David. Jack is another performer who you don't see singing lead roles as often as we should; he did play Drew in "Rock Of Ages" but this singing style is a different kettle of fish. Jack has a real old soul voice, which we get to hear in Act Two in the duet with Katie in "Love You Dearly".

Francis Fryer is played by Jack Woolley. Francis Fryer is a real fun character, and I really couldn't think of anyone better to play this role. You'll notice just how strong the vocals within this cast are, and it's also nice to see some actors taking the fore with their vocals. "Everyone Complains About the Weather" and "Hive Full Of Honey" take on personality with Jack.

Simon Parker is Henry Miller, the owner of The Golden Garter. What a wonderful character filled part this is for Simon. The jittering and the nervousness was done beautifully; you almost feel uncomfortable around Henry Miller, almost like being around a liability, all of which makes this character such fun. 

Rachelle Bragg is Susan Miller, Henry's Neice who helps run the hostelry, but love is in the air for Susan. Susan is a confident, strong willed character and Rachelle's return to the stage is well timed to play this role.

Graham Buchanan plays Doc and Dan Bates plays Rattlesnake, two popular characters in The Golden Garter who are also avid fans of Adelaide.

The ensemble is made up of Amy Parker, Angela Walters (who also played Flo, the barmaid at The Golden Garter), Dave O' Neal, Eleanor Harvey, John East, John Paxton, Laura Lawless, Nikola Smith, Rhodri Denton, Shantana Bhumbra and Tracy Hooton. 

The Can Can Dancers were Charlotte Buchanan, Josie Coleman, Lauren Riley, Molly Parkinson, Nicola Adcock and Victoria Palmer.

Directed by Elle Bates, assisted by Rhodri Denton. This is Elle's debut directing for Long Eaton Operatic Society. She also was the brains behind the set design, which was superb. I love a good gauze scene, and to open the musical we had the set split into three with a gauze screen section of Jane and the gang coming in on the Deadwood Stage, while we also got to see the first glimpse of The Golden Garter, as well as meeting the Can Can Girls in full flow. Loved the set design which was well managed by the cast and the stage managers.

Choreographed by Molly Parkinson. As you can imagine there are many wonderful scenes to choreograph, from the hopelessly romantic "Secret Love", the wistful "Love You Dearly", the fun and energetic "Can Can", the comedy styling for ""Everyone Complains About the Weather", which involves Jack Woolley performing in drag, never easy to carry out choreography for a bloke in heels - unless that bloke is used to wearing even the smallest heels. My favourite choreography though has to be for "Windy City", which is where the whole cast, I felt, really got into their stride.

George Parkinson is the Musical Director.  Some great songs in the soundtrack like "The Deadwood Stage", "The Black Hills Of Dakota", "I Can Do Without You", "The Windy City", "Higher Than A Hawk" and of course "Secret Love", sang with great emotion by the wonderful Aimee.

Costumes are on loan from Litchfield Costume Hire and are everything that you could wish to see in this musical. It was like watching the musical from the film, the costumes were so good.

Sound is by Matt Haslam. No real issues here, a few crackles with the mics, but opening night normally throws up something with sound because it'll be the first time that the cast have performed in front of a full theatre, so the sound always sounds different from rehearsals and tech runs. I did note though that throughout the show, Matt was obviously taking notice of sound volumes on mics and tweaked them, because the sound quality improved as the show went on. This by the way is not a negative thing because it shows that the man behind the sound knows what to listen for and tweaks accordingly. An aurally observant sound man is a boon for any production, especially on opening night. I expect these slight changes were not noticed by the eagerly anticipant audience, but it's these little things I do notice, and whenever I can praise sound ops, I do because I know that sometimes it can seem that I do more sound op moaning than praising. Good job, Matt.

Lighting is by David Price. A brilliant design and operation by David who is one of the areas top lighting ops.

Now, there were a few things that did give me the ick, and I must mention.

I really do think that a good sound effect of a gunshot is needed whenever anyone fires off a gun. Calamity uses her gun a couple of times but instead of having a sound effect that sounded like a big Smith and Wesson, we got something that sounded like a cap gun popping.

The pace did need tightening up just a bit, but this I am putting down to opening night and reacting to the reaction from an audience, something that you can't really get spot on in rehearsals. There were a few times where I wasn't sure if the cast had forgotten lines, but then after a few seconds - and a few seconds gap on stage is a long time - the next line was delivered. These gaps need tightening up, which as I said I have every confidence that throughout the week, the gaps will be gone.

There's a scene where the Lieutenant's right arm is medically tended to by Calamity by wrapping a bandage tightly around the top part of his arm. Doc examined this and complimented Calamity on the excellent job, after which the bandage fell down his arm. Calamity then told the Lieutenant to give her his good arm, and promptly took the arm that she had just bandaged instead of his good arm. Maybe changing the bandaged arm to the left arm, leaving the near right arm to help him to his feet would resolve that slight boo boo.

I also thought that one of the wind instruments was slightly out of tune, but could not gauge which one it might be.

Apologies for coming across as  Craig Revel-Horwood with my picky observations, but I know that this company can take these observations because I know what perfectionists they are.

That said, I love these classic musicals, and LEOS have a history of producing top quality musicals with the creme de la creme of cast members and production people. Loved the energy that came from the stage, and all you have to do is watch the ensemble to see just how much fun they are having. When a cast have this much energy, you can't help but love what is going down on stage, and I certainly did. Team all that with an iconic soundtrack and you have a smash show.

There's also a BSL Interpreter, Emma Dawber, on certain days and the programme has an audio described QR Code, plus there's a Touch Tour, all making theatre ever more accessible to audience members. LEOS Musical theatre Company were the recipients of the "Celebrating Equality, Diversity, Inclusion and Participation Award at the 2023/2024 Eagle Awards in recognition of the work that they have put in to improving accessibility of their productions.

"Calamity Jane" is at May Hall in Long Eaton until Saturday 26 October. 

Photos by Ali Langton.