At the Milton Theatre on the South Coast of NSW - GUYS AND DOLLS (Frank Loesser, Jo Swerling, Abe Burrows) produced by Milton Follies

Tickets were $38, or $33 concessions if you want to claim them. Freezing cold and spots of rain all the way up the highway from Bawley Point to be there for a 7.00 pm start. Programs $5 and an encouragement to buy raffle tickets for a couple of hampers filled with stuff supplied by local 'sponsors'. Top supporting credits to Ulladulla Ex-Servos and the Mollymook Golf Club, poker machine palaces but probably the only local institutions with any capacity for charitable largesse.

In the auditorium the members of the Save a Soul Mission wander around the aisles helping people find their seats.

Onto the opening "i've got the horse right here" number and the first surprise. Nicely Nicely Johnson, immortalised in the Joseph L Mankiewicz movie version by Stubby Kaye, is played by a female actor (Ebony Millard). This becomes a bit of a trope throughout, no doubt because in Milton/Mollymook/Ulladulla there is more enthusiasm for doing a show from women than men rather than any DEI casting. 

On  with the show and the numbers just roll out...not a dud song in the more than three hours we're in the theatre (including an interval). The Oldest Established, I'll Know, A Bushel and a Peck, Adelaide's Lament, Guys and Dolls, If I Were a Bell, My Time of Day, I've Never Been in Love Before, Take Back Your Mink, More I Cannot Wish You, Luck Be a Lady, Sue Me,Sit Down, You're Rockin' the Boat (knocked out of the park, as they say by the aforementioned Ebony Millard) and Marry the Man Today. You just have to say the titles to be reminded of just how great this collection of Broadway songs is. And Frank Loesser did all of them, music and lyrics. No one else. I reckon only Sondheim has ever equalled one man's creativity on this show.

The stage seems to have a depth of about fifteen feet. The choreography has to cope with some very limited space but it's OK and the dancers aren't high kickers in the manner  that would get them a spot in the finale of A Chorus Line. Just a joke. 

Fabulous night out...