Customer Reviews

Annie Get Your Gun (1986 London Revival Cast)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
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1 star:		(0)

 

 

I highly recommend this cd soundtrack if West End musicals are your thing. Suzi Quatro gives a fine performance in her portrail of Annie Oakley.

Suzi shows her versatility, thus being her first stage role after being asked by Andrew Lloyd Webber, to play the part of Annie Oakley. Suzi gives a superb performance as well as reaching some of the high notes that the performance requires.

Suzi delivers the role paying total resemblance to the spirit of Annie Oakley character... Thanks Suzi Quatro for delivering a fine performance of this well loved character one that Dorothy Hutton would enjoy. It would be great to see this released on DVD in the near future...

This is a perfectly fine recording of the 1986 British revival presented at the Chichester Festival Theatre. Suzie Quatro can't hit the high notes and can get a little raw at times but she acts the part well. Eric Flynn is a bit long in the tooth for Frank Butler but vocally he's fine. There are 18 tracks including the later interpolated OLD FASHIONED WEDDING. The two soubrette songs are eliminated. At 56:06 this is a nearly complete rendering and is recorded as are all the Chichester shows as if you are front row center with a typical pit orchestra. It stands with most recordings of the work and is a fine choice if you don't care for Merman or Hutton or Martin.

The 1986 Chichester Festival Theatre production of the Irving Berlin/Herbert and Dorothy Fields musical Annie Get Your Gun stars Suzi Quatro(best known to American audiences as Leather Tuscadero on tv's Happy Days) as the title character, Eric Flynn as Frank Butler and Edmund Hockridge. Despite a lackluster rendition of the overture, the production redeems itself with "Colonel Buffalo Bill" led so well by Maureen Scott as Dolly Tate. Flynn(a big baritone and a worthy successor to the role, sings much in the style of Ray Middleton, Stephen Douglass and Howard Keel) nails "I'm A Bad, Bad, Man", "The Girl That I Marry" and "My Defenses Are Down". One, however, can hardly expect Quatro to match Ethel Merman's powerhouse take-no-prisoners delivery. She is, perhaps, an understated light-weight, thankfully not as frenetic as film Annie, Betty Hutton, but seemingly more age appropriate. The strong ensemble brilliantly performs "There's No Business Like Show Business", "I Got The Sun In The Morning" and an energetic reprise of the former as a finale. I much prefer this recording to the most recent revival with Broadway diva Bernadette Peters.

A pretty sub-standard attempt at redoing what was done perfectly before, the Chichester Festival production of ANNIE GET YOUR GUN was almost perfect...and the reason is simple. Any production of AGYG either flies or falls on it's Annie Oakley; and the casting choice of Suzi Quatro is a pretty miserable one indeed.

Although she has the Southern twang down pat, she just can't sing the songs with any depth or emotion. Her Annie Oakley is just not convincing.

Eric Flynn is great as Frank Butler, and the rest of the cast are wonderful too, but poor Suzi Quatro's tired and scratchy vocals seem too threadbare in comparison. One wonders how she kept up 8 performances a week in what is considered one of the most demanding roles you can do in musical theatre.

Overall, a fair recording.