Based upon the risque yarns of Damon Runyon, the action takes place in New York, during the time of prohibition – 1920 to 1933. The story tells of two love affairs, the first between compulsive gambler Nathan Detroit and the leading dancer at the Hot Box night club, Miss Adelaide, and the second between another – far more successful – gambler, Sky Masterson and Miss Sarah Brown, a leading light of the Save-A-Soul Mission. Other Runyonesque characters enhance the milieu, notably Benny Southstreet, Big Jule, Harry the Horse, and Nicely-Nicely Johnson, whose solo with full chorus normally stops the show in the exuberant ‘Sit Down, You’re Rockin’ The Boat’. During the course of the show, true love triumphs despite many obstacles, not least of which is the police officer Lieutenant Brannigan’s desperate attempts to locate and close down Nathan’s floating crap game, the ‘oldest established’ in New York. By the time the curtain falls, Masterson is a reformed character and has married Sarah, while Nathan and Miss Adelaide are about to marry after a 14-year-long courtship.
Loesser’s marvellous score includes
- Follow The Fold
- Fugue For Tinhorns
- The Oldest Established
- I’ll Know
- A Bushel And A Peck
- Adelaide’s Lament
- Guys and Dolls
- Havana
- 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 Tonight
- Sue Me
- Marry The Man Today