Anything Goes
Music and lyrics by Cole Porter
Original book by PG Wodehouse & Guy Bolton and Howard Lindsay & Russel Crouse (1934)
New book by Timothy Crouse & John Weidman (1987)
Among the passengers heading for England on the luxury liner SS American are Reno Sweeney, a sometime celebrity evangelist turned nightclub entertainer and Lord Oakleigh, a wealthy English aristocrat, accompanied by his debutante fiancée, Hope Harcourt, her protective mother and Wall Street millionaire, Eli Whitney. Less legally on board are the stowaway Billy Crocker, desperately pursuing Hope, and Moonface Martin, Public Enemy Number Thirteen, desperately seeking the kind of notoriety enjoyed by Snake Eyes Johnson, whom the FBI believe to be making the trip in disguise.
The first golden age of American musical comedy in the 1930s produced a crop of masterworks from the Gershwins, Jerome Kern, Irving Berlin and Cole Porter. Their content was intentionally and exuberantly light-hearted, with farcical plots concerning highly satirised characters, but they nonetheless presented musical scores of exquisite sophistication and elegance. For our first excursion into this richly endowed territory, the National has chosen Cole Porter's Anything Goes.
The fabulous tune-filled, dance-peppered score includes I Get A Kick Out of You, You're The Top, It's De-Lovely, Blow, Gabriel, Blow, You'd Be So Easy To Love, All Through The Night and the galvanic title number Anything Goes, which in both music and lyric so captures the spirit of the age.
This version was originally produced by Lincoln Center Theater, New York City in 1987
This production is now sold out. Day Seats and Returns only.
Buy Robert Butler's Just About Anything Goes and then read the final chapter online.AWARDS
2002 Critics' Circle Award: Best Musical
2003 Laurence Olivier Award: Outstanding Musical Production
Anything Goes finished on: 22 March 2003
