Anything Goes – Barbican Theatre

Anything Goes continues at the Barbican Theatre, London until 3 September 2022.

Star rating: five stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Kathleen Marshall’s effervescent revival of Anything Goes continues to gleam as the gold standard for traditional, old-school musical theatre. The show that has dazzled audiences with its beautiful sets, epic set pieces and breathless dancing since its Broadway opening back in 2011 has returned once more to the Barbican after its UK tour with a new lead cast. With this fresh lick of paint and some buffing with the Brasso, it’s gleaming good as new. Ship-shape and Barbican fashion, you could say…

The role of Reno Sweeney – which earned this production’s original star Sutton Foster her second Tony Award – has been filled by Kerry Ellis, who does a fantastic job of filling Foster’s tap shoes. She’s electrifying. It’s not a role I’d automatically associate with Ellis – this an obviously very dance-led show – but wow, she really digs deep and delivers. Vocally, she’s in her comfort zone so no surprise that she doesn’t struggle to give voice to her Sweeney, but it’s with Marshall’s choreography that she really pushes the boat out. It’s surely an exhausting role – and more so in this week’s blistering heat – but she absolutely nails it. (And thank the gods of the theatre for her sake and ours that the Barbican is well air-conditioned.)

Ellis also brings to Sweeney a touch of Hollywood Golden Age glamour. Her bone structure, combined with Campbell Young Associates’ make-up and hair, gives her the air of a 1930s movie star, at least when compared with Sutton Foster’s more contemporary looking Sweeney. Think Bacall, Hayworth, Hepburn… just happier!

But let’s not attempt to compare this new cast with the previous. The joy of revisiting and reviving is to bring something new each time, and this glamorous new set does just that.

Simon Callow is tremendous value as the half-deaf, half-blind Wall Street maven Elisha J. Whitney. He offers up a comedy masterclass, gleefully wringing the part for every laugh, even where it’s not written in Timothy Crouse and John Weidman’s admittedly already martini-dry PG Wodehouse-inspired script. Can he sing? Meh, not as well as Gary Wilmot, but he styles it out and, as I say, we’re not trading hostages here. His Whitney is his own unique creation, and the show is better for it.

Another surprise casting – for me, at least – is Denis Lawson as Moonface Martin, Public Enemy No.13, although his CV reminds us that he’s no stranger to musical theatre: La Cage aux Folles, Pal Joey and Mr Cinders, among others. His voice has warmth and character, and combined with his comedy timing, results in an engaging, fun performance throughout. His ‘Be Like the Bluebird’ solo is a delight.

Rounding off this fresh foursome is the ever-reliable Bonnie Langford, who is perfectly cast as the neurotic Evangeline Harcourt. Of course she is – she can sing and dance (including still getting her high-kicks higher than most of the featured dancers more than half her age!) and also has that magical comic timing that makes her one of the UK’s most enduring and sought-after stars.

The real stars of the show, though, as before, are Samuel Edwards as the lovesick Billy Crocker and Nicole-Lily Baisden as debutante Hope Harcourt. There’s no faulting their performances: they’re de-lovely, delightful, delectable, etc, to borrow lazily from Porter. And throw in the sterling work from Carly Mercedes Dyer as the saucy moll Erma, and you have a lead ensemble that must rank as the strongest currently on the London stage.

Strong support is also provided in the shape of the excellent Haydn Oakley as Lord Evelyn Oakleigh, whose inventively staged solo ‘The Gypsy in Me’ is a proper show-stopper, an energetic Carl Au as Luke and Cornelius Clarke as the Purser.

What’s remarkable is that, even with all of these first-class passengers, the show is still greater than the sum of its parts. You can’t help but leave the auditorium with a smile on your face, not with Cole Porter songs of this quality performed by a band of this calibre. For toe-tapping happiness, the close of Act I (‘Anything Goes’) and effectively the opening of Act II (‘Blow Gabriel Blow’) are pretty much unrivalled in musical theatre.

MD Mark Aspinall has under his baton a top-notch orchestra that fills the Barbican with its joyous sound while keeping beautifully in balance with the singers (good job with the sound design, Jonathan Deans). It continues to look fabulous and expensive – bravo designer Derek McLane for re-recreating the SS American in all its glamorous Art Deco glory.

So, set a course for the Barbican this summer and treat yourself to the happiest show in town. It’s no wonder that Anything Goes broke Barbican box-office records last year. We’re politically and economically not so far away from the Wall Street of the 1920s, and rarely has a depression-era musical been so needed by so many. All aboard!

Craig Glenday