"Goin' Courting" with 'Seven Brothers'!
By Kate Morley - 03/10/2008
Based on the book by Lawrence Kasha and David Landay, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, as the title suggests, follows the story of woodsman Adam Pontipee and his six younger brothers in their quest to find wives.
Eldest brother Adam decides he needs a wife to carry out the domestic chores at his ranch and soon persuades the beautiful and 'sassy', Milly into marrying him – and arrangement where she soon finds herself not just serving her husband but his six boorish brothers too. Undaunted, Milly works her magic and the rest of the show portrays the ensuing power struggle as she tries to ‘civilize’ the other brothers –away from Adam’s influence.
Steven Houghton, as Adam, takes the role made famous by Howard Keel in the 1954 film version of the show, and does a good job of portraying the oldest brother struggling with having his authority undermined, firstly by his wife, and then by the brothers he has worked so hard to support after the loss of their parents. Houghton’s acting is finely tuned enough to bring sympathy to a role which, in less sensitive hands could have become either mawkish or crass.
Unfortunately, Susan McFadden, who plays Milly was unwell for the performance I attended, but the role was played perfectly well by her understudy Suzy Stanley. Again, this is not a particularly easy role to play, there needs to be enough subtlety to prevent ‘spirited’ tipping over into ‘aggressive’ and Milly still needs to retain her inherent sweetness. Stanley achieved this admirably, turning in a truly believable performance, although her voice occasionally lacked a little power and some light and shade in some places.
The six brothers, and their brides, were magnificently played and their dance routines in their company numbers were truly spectacular with fresh choreography and lots of energy and colour.
There were occasions when they could have been a little tighter in some of the routines, but the ‘rustic’ nature of the show makes more allowances for these tiny errors than most, so this is a minor detail. The other issue in places was the over-complicated set, which restricted the stage area, and made some of the larger company numbers look crowded and a tad messy.
Stylistically too, the show sometimes seemed a little muddled as to whether it was trying to be a musical or a pantomime. I would have preferred the costumes and artistic design to have been a little less of the latter and more of the former - but perhaps that’s just a personal view; certainly the Bristol audience seemed to thoroughly enjoy their foot-stompin’ evening!
Featuring classic songs including 'Bless your Beautiful Hide', 'Goin' Courtin', 'Wonderful Wonderful Day', 'Sobbin' Women' this is truly a show for all ages and fans of the film will undoubtedly love the knee-slapping atmosphere. – look out for it at a theatre near you!
Tour dates
October
6th Liverpool Empire
20th Nottingham Theatre Royal
27th Manchester Opera House
November
3rd Dartford Orchard
10th Windsor Theatre Royal
17th Hull New Theatre
24th Birmingham Alexandra Theatre
2009
February
2nd Woking New Victoria
9th Richmond Theatre
16th Southsea Kings Theatre
23rd Cardiff New Theatre
March
2nd Darlington Civic Theatre
9th Glasgow Kings Theatre
16th Bournemouth Pavilion Theatre
23rd Bradford Alhambra Theatre
30th Llandudno North Wales Theatre
April
6th Cheltenham Everyman
13th Wolverhampton Grand Theatre
27th Brighton Theatre Royal
May
4th Wimbledon New Theatre
11th Stoke Regent Theatre
June
15th Milton Keynes Theatre
22nd Swansea Grand Theatre
29th Leeds Grand Theatre
July
20th Sheffield Lyceum