out & about / in the press / 2001 -2005

First the bad news. When Trevor Nunn's smash hit production of Cole Porter's ANYTHING GOES finished its three month run at the National Theatre earlier this year everyone in the company thought it had been and gone. After the standing ovations, Sally Ann Triplett and John Barrowman who headed the 45 strong company playing Reno Sweeeny and Billy Crocker, said the entire company hoped the show would find another life in the West End. It wasn't to be. "Rarely in our careers do you get a show or a company where you feel like a family. The galling bit was knowing that we weren't going anywhere. It seemed ludicrous," John tells me. "We took the town by by storm," recalls Sally Ann, "People were even camping out on the last night. But apart from the t-shirts, there was nothing to take away with us -- just a memory in our heads."

And what memories! The show had its own front row groupies and smashed box office records. For John it was both "amazing" and "knackering" "I was rehearsing Trevor's production of LOVE'S LABOURS LOST during the day and at night it was high energy go go go. In fact I got the flu and had to have some rehearsal days off." For Sally Ann it was almost sublime. "One night we were in the middle of doing 'You're the Top' and there I was in this great role made famous by Ethel Merman singing opposite John and I looked around me at the company, the costumes and the band and I thought; 'It just doesn't get any better then this,'"

But now the good news. The revival has found a new home -- at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane. And for Sally Ann Triplett and John, who also starred in the 1989 London revival of ANYTHING GOES (with Elaine Paige), it's like a spooky date with destiny. Both have appeared in the famously haunted 'Lane' before. Sally in her first West End show, THE BEST LITTLE WHOREHOUSE IN TEXAS and John was in MISS SAIGON for two seperate seasons. "The Drury Lane ghost likes me," John says. "I'm not kidding. He follows me around. You can smell the lavender. It's the ghost of an incontinent Victorian actor and lavendar bags were used to cover up the smell. When I was in MISS SAIGON I told the company manager the dressing room was stinking of lavender. She went pale and said it was the ghost."

And Sally Ann says she did all the right things to ensure her return. "On the last night of WHOREHOUSE the stage door keeper told me that if you touch all four corners of the stage immediately before you go it means you will return."

Afer ANYTHING GOES closed at the National, they both kept working, but it wasn't the same. Sally Ann was in a revival of GOLDEN BOY, an experience she prefers to forget. "It was a great cast but when you have somebody at the helm who doesn't know what they are doing, it makes life difficult." It was the same for John, who was in a musical on the life of Zelda and Scott Fitzgerald: "It was like going straight into problems after all of Trevor's detailing. No matter how good the song and dance, if a show doesn't touch your heart what's the point."