Wiltshire Times

FRIDAY, MAY 23 2003

Lively musical is unmissable

STUNNING costumes, jolly, well-known songs, a real dog and a bright and bubbly cast make Trowbridge Amateur Operatic Society’s summer production one of their most entertaining to date.

Anything Goes, on stage until Saturday, examines the lives and loves of passengers on board the SS American in 1934.

It is TAOS’s first time at the Arc Theatre, and as the stage is much smaller than at their usual Civic Hall venue, creative use of space has been necessary, with the live band on a raised platform like a higher ship’s deck above the action.

Caroline Schmidt is superbly sassy and charismatic as night-club singer Reno Sweeney.

Also excellent is gangster’s moll Erma, played by the irrepressible Hannah Lockwood, a little lady with a huge voice and talent – a great loss for TAOS, then, that she is off to university in September to study Performing Arts.

First night nerves were particularly apparent on Monday for Matt Heaton as Billy, but his faltering American accent and missed notes early on were on track by the end of the night. Paul Butler, meanwhile, is superb from the offset as the hilarious and immensely endearing Lord Evelyn Oakleigh. A don’t-miss show.

Dawn Gorman