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music & lyrics by Cole Porter, book by P. G. Wodehouse & Guy Bolton, directed by Kimberley Rampersad

Shaw Festival, Festival Theatre, Niagara-on-the-Lake

May 24-October 4, 2025

Billy: “It’s delightful, it’s delicious”

If you’re looking for a show to set your toes tapping, to put a smile on your face and to fill your ears with unforgettable songs, you need look no further than the Shaw Festival production of Anything Goes. After the unbeatable Lincoln Center revival of the show in 1987, this is the best version of this delightful musical I’ve ever seen. With a top-notch cast, smart direction and well-planned dance numbers, this show should already be on your summer theatre must-see list.

I laid out the complicated background of the show in my review of the touring Roundabout Theatre production from 2011: “The original book [from 1934] was by Guy Bolton and P.G. Wodehouse and features Wodehouse’s favoured mix of aristocrats and gangsters. The book had to be revised before the show opened in 1934 but Bolton and Wodehouse were unavailable, so Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse did the fixing. In 1987 Lincoln Center mounted a hugely popular revival and had Timothy Crouse and John Weidman further revise the book and add Cole Porter songs from other shows”. The current Shaw production is much the same as the 2011 version with minor additions and deletions.

The plot is full of innumerable twists and turns. In brief, Billy Crocker finds himself travelling on the same ship as his former sweetheart Hope Harcourt. Hope’s mother Evangeline has arranged a marriage between Hope and the English Lord Evelyn Oakleigh so that she and her daughter will not have to lower their standard of living. Helping Billy win back Hope are the former evangelist-turned-nightclub singer Reno Sweeney and a gangster acquaintance of hers “Moonface” Martin, currently Public Enemy #13. Add that Billy happens to be travelling with the passport of the current Public Enemy #1 and multiple mix-ups ensue.

As I noted in 2013, “Along the way the cast sings some of the most famous songs Cole Porter ever wrote – ‘I Get a Kick Out of You’, ‘You’d Be So Easy to Love’, ‘You’re the Top’, ‘Friendship’, ‘It’s De-Lovely’ and, of course, ‘Anything Goes’”. In fact, seeing a show so packed with classic numbers makes you wonder how people have ever come to accept the many current musicals that have only one or even no engagingly excerptible songs.

Kimberley Rampersad both directs and choreographs and she proves insightful at both. Few directors of Anything Goes bother to make the relationships among the characters as clear as Rampersad does. In the first three productions I saw, I wondered why Reno Sweeney was even in the show except to sing some of Porter’s most famous songs. Rampersad importantly brings out Reno’s history with Billy – she was sweet on him, but he is just pals with her – and Rampersad also carefully shows us how Reno and Lord Evelyn come to be attracted to each other. Instead of coming as a surprise, Evelyn’s comic number “The Gypsy in Me” justifies Reno’s attraction to a man she now sees is not really the stuffed shirt he appears to be.

Rampersad uses dance not just as extensions of songs but to develop the relationship between characters rather as Hermes Pan did in the best Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers films. During the dance between Billy and Hope to “It’s De-lovely”, Rampersad shows how Hope’s resolve to stick to her mother’s plan fades in the light of her renewed love for Billy. Their second dance to “All Through the Night” cements their commitment to each other.

As choreographer Rampersad draws on a wide range of dance styles from ballroom for the dances for Billy and Hope to tap for Reno Sweeney’s big numbers to acrobatics for the Sailors’ Quartet. The Act 1 finale “Anything Goes” grows from Reno Sweeney’s rendition of the song to encompass the whole cast in one of the most exciting, extended dance numbers I’ve seen at the Shaw.

Rampersad has a great cast. This is the first production of Anything Goes where Reno Seeney is presented not just as a singer of great songs but as a fully rounded character. Mary Antonini first shows us Reno as down, trying to get used to the fact that Billy, the man she loves, loves someone else. When thrown together with Evelyn, Reno sees that there may be someone who has more in common with her than Billy. Antonini makes us feel that Reno’s personal emotions infuse her famous songs with the energy that makes her so charismatic. Antonini has no trouble putting across Porter’s hits and dances up a storm, and for the first time Reno feels integrated into the story, a fact that gives the entire show greater impact.

The role of Billy Crocker gives Jeff Irving the chance to show us yet again that he is a true triple-threat. He infuses both his singing and dancing with passion and elegance, making them not showpieces but extensions of his character. Irving is an expert at playing innocents who find themselves in difficult situations, but here Irving hints at the fear, frustration and yearning that make what could be a stock romantic characters much more complex.

Celeste Catena is an ideal Hope Harcourt. Catena has a lovely operetta-like soprano that shines in every song, especially in her one solo number “Goodbye, Little Dream, Goodbye”, which she sings with great feeling. Allan Louis is comically fussy as Lord Evelyn Oakleigh. We know from other shows that Louis has a strong singing voice, but it is low-lying. He could put across his big song, “The Gypsy in Me”, much more effectively if it were transposed down into his range.

Michael Therriault and Kristi Frank are a fun pair as Moonface Martin and good-time girl Erma. Therriault finds all the comedy when Martin’s attempts to play the big bad guy are undermined by his own bungling. Frank plays Erma not as the usual ditz, but rather as woman who knows what she wants and knows how to get it. This attitude makes sense of Erma’s big number “Buddy, Beware” in a way I’ve not seen before. Sharry Flett combines refinement and humour as Evangeline Harcourt, while Shawn Wright shows that there are finer feelings beneath all the bluster of Elisha Whitney.

The is no faulting the fine array of period costumes designed by Cory Sincennes, especially the series of attractive ensembles he has created for Evangeline Harcourt to make her the most elegantly dressed character in the show. What is strange is his design for the set. The uniform grey of the ship makes it look more like a naval vessel than an ocean liner. He also has placed a grey metal wall behind and to each side of the set which makes the ship look boxed in rather than sailing freely on the high seas. A simple blue cyclorama would easily create an open atmosphere more in keeping with the theme of the musical as stated in its title.

The Shaw production of Anything Goes is a blissful escape as refreshing as a sea breeze and sure to elevate the mood of all who come aboard.

Christopher Hoile

Photos: Cast of Anything Goes; Celeste Catena as Hope Harcourt and Jeff Irving as Billy Crocker (on upper level) with chorus; Jeff Irving as Billy Crocker, Mary Antonini as Reno Sweeney and Michael Therriault as Moonface Martin. © 2025 David Cooper.

For tickets visit: www.shawfest.com.