WE know Wild West sharpshooter Annie Oakley from Annie Get Your Gun, the Irving Berlin musical with Betty Hutton and Howard Keel in the 1950 film version.
Little Sure Shot has another shot at it in writer/composer Lucy Rivers new play with music for the West Yorkshire Playhouse Community ambassador programme and The Egg, a cracking little children's theatre in Bath.
Taking its title from the translation of the native Indian name Chief Sitting Bull gave the champion hotshot, Rivers has created a wonderful actor-musician piece for seven year olds and upwards that will delight young and old alike, making it perfect for the Playhouse's community centre project, under which it is visiting eight locations in Leeds, building on the momentum of last year's community travels with Alan Bennett's Talking Heads.
Directed with delightful detail by Amy Leach, Little Sure Shot is played out in Buffalo Bill's Wild West circus tent in Hayley Grindle's design with its poles and flags and flooring, with plenty of playing space in the middle for swift prop changes.
Harrogate actress Verity Kirk, excelling on the Playhouse Graduate actor scheme, and Andrew Whitehead's narrator Buffalo Bill lead the cast of five as Rivers doesn't shy away from the hardships of young Annie Moses' life.
It ain't a bed of roses and there's no showbusiness about it through those years as her father (Andy Clark) dies all too young, and her impoverished mother sends her to a poor-farm orphanage that leads to an abusive relationship when she is taken on as a maid.
Yet Annie is made of grit. It may be more a case of Annie don't get your gun, because a woman shooting is "shameful", but she defies convention, shooting her way to the top and into the arms of Frank Butler (David Leopold).
Paksie Vernon completes a superb multi role-playing cast in a show that combines the amusing with the moving, the happy with the sad, all reflected in Rivers' music. Little Sure Shot is a palpable hit.
Little Sure Shot, Courtyard Theatre, West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds, 2pm and 6.30pm today; also touring Leeds community centres. Box office: 0113 213 7700 or wyp.org.uk
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