Annie Get Your Gun

It is always good to hear a good orchestra strike up with the overture to a show and I have to say the orchestra for this show, under the direction of Jonathan Wilby, was one of the best I have heard for some time.

Of course you don’t just need a good orchestra or backing group to make for a good show, you also need a good line up of principals and a good chorus to make it work and here we had both to make for a great show. In the lead character, which is not an easy one to do as it is a mammoth part and one which needs stamina to keep it up for a full week, including two shows on the Saturday, we had Kirsty Probert who could not only deliver the lines extremely well but also put the songs over. Kirsty was able to do both these with ease and make the part of Annie Oakley a very believable character.

Playing opposite Kirsty we had Kristian Denman as Frank Butler who not only looked the part but was also able to “strut” around the stage and portray this character to its full extent. His acting was superb and equalled with his singing abilities to accompany Kirsty in the many songs and duets, I particularly enjoyed their performance of “Anything You Can Do”, it was perfection itself.

There were also great performances from Samantha Smedley and Ashley Booker as Dolly Tate and Charlie Davenport, both these were able to get the most out of these parts and show what first rate performers they are.

It would be totally wrong not to mention the kids in this production as they too were able to give some very professional performances, these were Daisy Mikulik as Minnie, Erin Street as Jessie, Evie Bounds as Nellie and Hannah Poole as an extremely talented Little Jake, well done to all of them.

It is not possible to mention everyone by name in the limited space we have here but needless to say there was not a weak link in the whole chain from the chorus to the smaller parts and right up to the two leading characters everyone played their parts to the full.

Congratulations to everyone involved especially to Gail Cobb as director who must very proud of the end results.

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