Review – Guys and Dolls
Based on Damon Runyon’s short story “The Idyll of Miss Sarah Brown,” Guys and Dolls centres round Nathan Detroit, the organizer of the oldest permanent floating crap game in New York, bets Sky Masterson that he can’t make the next girl he sees fall in love with him- this is Miss Sarah Brown of the Save-a-Soul Mission. Meanwhile, Nathan’s long-term fiancĂ©e and the main attraction at the Hot Box nightclub – Miss Adelaide, only wants to get married. In the end the gamblers and “spunky do-gooders” are thrown together and a few changes are made.
Never short of talented performers NOMADS fielded a strong team of principals with AMANDA ALDRIDGE as Sarah Brown and JAMIE MAGUIRE as Sky Masterson: excellent empathy between the two led to some good sparky scenes coupled with great acting and singing. TIM McCORMICK made an excellent Nathan Detroit with opposite number CHARLOTTE MARTIN putting in a feisty performance as his long-suffering fiancée Miss Adelaide. Both actors had a great feel for the humour of their roles.
ADAM BONNER gave a notable performance as Nicely-Nicely Johnson —good voice and great stage presence and it was good to see Alan Coogan (Harry the Horse) and Wallace Wareham (Arvide Abernathy) treading the boards again after a much too-long-a break for them both.
The success of this show depends as much on the male chorus as it does on the principals. NOMADS had a large and talented male chorus for this production and their two major numbers Luck Be A Lady and Sit Down You’re Rocking the Boat were excellent. Great voices and confidently executed choreography by Jessica Clifford and Andy Thorpe made these scenes stimulating. The men were balanced nicely by the lively Hot Box Girls with two very energetic numbers A Bushel and a Peck and Take Back Your Mink. Added to this we had the enthusiastic input of the members of the Mission Band rounding off this talented cast nicely.
Despite having lost their musical director SIMON PEARCE a couple of days before opening night when he suffered a heart attack (from which, I understand, he is recovering well), the cast pulled out all the stops and did director GAIL BAKER and Simon proud with a great production which played to packed houses all week and deservedly so.
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