Roush Review: Tap-Happy Sutton Foster in Slap-Happy ‘Anything Goes’
Review
Anything Goes
To borrow from the great Cole Porter, you’ll get a kick out of Sutton Foster.
As the brassy Reno Sweeney, the Younger star is positively ageless in a giddy revival of Porter’s 1930s musical, Anything Goes. When she’s not belting classic tunes (“You’re the Top,” “Blow, Gabriel, Blow”), Foster jokes and tirelessly taps her way into musical-comedy heaven. She beams and glows with delight as she delivers this timeless material with verve and blissfully old-fashioned showmanship.
Currently packing New York’s Winter Garden Theatre opposite Hugh Jackman in a Tony-nominated smash-hit revival of The Music Man, Foster had an earlier success on Broadway with Anything Goes (winning a 2011 Tony Award), more recently reprising the role on London’s West End (earning a 2022 Olivier Award nomination). In this swank Great Performances presentation, filmed during her run last year at London’s Barbican Theatre, Foster’s wisecracking entertainer Reno (“I’ll be saving sinners twice a night in the ship’s lounge”) is the indefatigable life of the party aboard the ocean liner SS American, a ship full of dancing fools where a cornball farce unfolds that’s almost too silly for words.
Forget what there is of the plot involving mistaken identities, gangsters and moony-eyed ingenues. (When a character complains, “I’m not sure I follow this,” you’ll nod in happy agreement.) Anything Goes is pure entertainment, a guaranteed two-and-a-half-hour grin, with showstoppers that include Foster’s hilarious “Friendship” duet with a marvelously hammy Robert Lindsay (as “Public Enemy#13,” Moonface Martin) and the indelible title song that provides the Act 1 finale.
A glimpse of stocking may no longer be looked on as something shocking, but no matter how often you watch this rousing and tongue-twisting dance number—Kathleen Marshall won a well-deserved Tony for her playful choreography—you may feel like giving this great performer and the rest of the cast a standing ovation in your own living room.
Anything Goes, Friday, May 13, 9/8c, PBS (check local listings at pbs.org)
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P
I saw Sutton Foster on Broadway in "Anything Goes". She - and the production - were terrific! Looking forward to seeing this.
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P
Fifties movie version threw out the book, changed the light plot, and was a mediocre studio product. A huge Cole Porter fan, I dislike the movies of his work made during that period because they were bowdlerized, dimming the top theatrical composer's considerable wit and sophistication. It's all back in his best known, delightful play. The tap dancing is part of the music itself. Listen to the album. I am delighted with this rendering and with it's star.
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P
Not on until Sunday at noon for me, but I have the DVR set!
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I've seen both Bing Crosby versions (of which both the 1936 and 1956 versions were affected by the Production Code and the latter version had some added non-Porter songs) and a live TV version from the '50s starring Ethel Merman, Frank Sinatra, and Bert Lahr (which was only an hour long and was also had some materiel censored due to, I'm guessing, that same Code) and remember enjoying them all so this latest version should be really fun to watch!
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