Anything Goes, Barbican Theatre

Last seen in London some 16 years ago, the multi-award-winning musical Anything Goes is full of joy, fun and excitement, and as such the ideal show to celebrate audiences' release from Covid-19 lockdown… fingers crossed!

With music and lyrics by Cole Porter, based on a book by Guy Bolton and PG Wodehouse (later extensively revised), Anything Goes is set aboard an ocean liner crossing the Atlantic from New York to London. The young Wall Street broker Billy Crocker is a stowaway who's in love with the heiress Hope Harcourt. She, in turn, is engaged to Lord Evelyn Oakley. Clearly Billy is going to need help getting the girl, and luckily he can count on the ever resourceful nightclub singer Reno Sweeney, and the dodgy character 'Moonface' Martin.

Anybody who's somebody on Broadway and the West End has been in Anything Goes since the musical premiered in the 1930s. Frank Sinatra, Ethel Merman, Patti LuPone, Elaine Paige, Sally Ann Triplett, John Barrowman... you name them, they belted out the musical's glorious songs: Anything Goes, I Get a Kick Out of You, You're The Top… and many more. And they all tapped their way in this musical's spectacular dance routines.

Now other famous names of British theatre take their turn in the new production of Anything Goes. Felicity Kendal (The Good Life, Much Ado About Nothing) makes her musical theatre debut as Evangeline Harcourt, Hope's overbearing mother; Tony, Olivier and Bafta award-winner Robert Lindsay is 'Moonface' Martin; his accomplice in smoothing the path of true love, Reno Sweeney, is Emmy and SAG award-winner Megan Mullally.

The two lead actors are yet to be named – watch this space.

This new production features a full company, including 14 tap-dancing sailors, directed and choreographed by Kathleen Marshall.

Just to whet your appetite, we leave you with an extract from Anything Goes performed at the 2011 Tony Awards ceremony. Enjoy!