Entertainment

All aboard for a night of toe-tapping numbers

REVIEW

Anything Goes

Grand Opera House

Belfast

WITH a cast of 24, large stage crew and a full orchestra, this is a big production. One set, the deck of the SS American acts as the background for the story of a 1932 luxury cruise liner with the strangest collection of passengers you are likely to meet.

A complex story – on board is a girl engaged to wealthy man of nobility who meets and falls in love with perky young Wall Street banker but there's a case of mistaken identity – although, it must be said, lots of people fall in love with other people and in the end there are multiple marriages. But do the right couples get it together?

Even before we settle into our seats there’s action on the stage: a cocktail lounge, musicians playing in one corner, girl and sailor at the bar with a well-dressed businessman prowling around with his drink in his hand. This scene/set soon bursts into action as a curtain drops to reveal men and women piling up the gangplank to sail from New York to England. It’s noisy and frenetic.

Act One introduces the characters, including Reno Sweeney (Debbie Kurup) who has a great rapport with the audience, Moonface Martin (Shaun Williamson) from the criminal underworld, Elisha Whitney (Simon Rouse) the barfly with a heart and Evangeline Harcourt (Kate Anthony) who falls for his charms.

We meet the young lovers Billy Crocker (Matt Rawle) and Hope Harcourt (Zoe Rainey) and the jilted fiance Lord Evelyn Oakleigh (Stephen Matthews) who isn’t as clean cut as he appears.

But it’s only at the end of Act One and an energetic tap number, Anything Goes, that the show comes to life and, as so often happens, Act Two was more settled and polished and in this case, full of memorable Cole Porter numbers to hold the attention.

The script is both dated and stilted, cheesy and with innuendo but, especially after the interval, the audience loved it. Of course, the star is the music, excellent band and songs to set the feet tapping. My favourites? Bangor-born Rainey was the vulnerable young girl as she sang Goodbye Little Dream Goodbye, Matthews hilarious with The Gypsy in Me and You’re The Top with Kurup and Rawle.

A show that grows on you and sends you home happy and humming a tune.

:: Until Saturday. goh.co.uk.