Madcap antics aboard an ocean liner steaming between New York and London are the subject of Harrow Light Operatic Society's latest production. The below-deck mistaken identity farce that is Anything Goes features a stowaway in love with an heiress, an evangelistturned-nightclub singer and a disguised gangster and his companion.
Cole Porter's enduring smash hit, which debuted on Broadway in 1934, tells the tale of numerous unscrupulous characters on a transatlantic voyage aboard the SS American.
Famous songs from the Beaumont version of the musical - the version staged in London's West End starring Elaine Page and John Barrowman - include I Get A Kick Out Of You and, of course, Anything Goes.
Director Mike Monk, 52, who put on the same show with the company back in 2000, says: "It's a comic farce that's got all sorts of twists in it. It's light-hearted and very funny and the audience will be laughing a lot.
"I can guarantee to anyone that comes that they will be tapping their feet and humming or singing a tune on the way out.
"It's not too taxing and we've got some big numbers at the end of the first half and the start of the second. We've got girls swinging on anchors and everything!"
Mike said a quarter of the 40-strong cast are making their am-dram debut while the principals are a dab hand at turning the words on the script into a rip-roaring evening of song and dance.
"Given the price that we have to charge to cover the cost of the production nowadays, the audience expects a certain standard and we try to increase this every time we put on a show," he says.
Anything Goes follows on from successful stagings of The Witches of Eastwick earlier this year and Carousel and 42nd Street in 2007.
Harrow Light Operatic Society will be staging the twoand-a-half-hour show at 7.45pm each evening between Tuesday, October 14, and Saturday, October 18 - with an extra 2.30pm matinée on the final day - at Rickmansworth's Watersmeet Theatre.
