"No guns, no politics" says the sign over Miss Lillian’s saloon bar, but there’s plenty of both in this isolated town, if it’s sexual politics you are talking about.
Apart from a drunken sheriff, only women are left, their menfolk having departed to dig for gold, when along comes Jack Cannon, on the run from bounty hunters and fellow outlaws. The result is to turn relationships upside down, making all reassess their sexuality and/or gender identification.
Given the struggles they continue to face, the play is a laudable attempt to win recognition of and respect for LGBTQ+ communities. After the final shoot-out, Jack proclaims, "we’ve won [the battle] for now, but there’ll always be another."
Unfortunately, the script is as full of lead as the bodies of his pursuers, and as full of holes, too.
Vinnie Heaven’s Jack, armed robber, killer, kidnapper, extortionist, is actually a fey young man, prone to disco dancing, while carrying a bullet in his chest.
I actually thought, from the women’s gossip, that he was really one of the female husbands referred to in the programme, so it was quite a surprise when, after an interminable love scene that seems to take place in a horse trough, and to everyone’s surprise, he gets Miss Lillian pregnant. "It’s magic," cries one of the amazed townswomen. Magic the whole thing isn’t.
Then when her partner returns, after more than a year away, he is delighted to hear the news. It is only later that he asks if he is the father. I guess they didn’t have sex education lessons out West back then, but I ask you...
At intervals, perhaps to breathe a little liveliness into proceedings, the cast burst into sha-na-na type songs or wild dances that have no relevance to the plot, and little musical merit.
It may be unfortunate that writer Charlie Josephine co-directed the piece with Sean Holmes. More ruthless direction would surely have tightened up the long, tedious passages of clunky dialogue. Matters improve only briefly with the reappearance of the returned prospectors as they turn their prejudices against wives refusing to conform to their previous selves.
Was the piece meant to be parody, satire, fantasy, celebration? I felt that in trying to be all of these, it succeeded in being none.
Sophie Melville holds the attention as Miss Lillian, with a pleasant Wild West Wales accent, and Lucy McCormick gives a spirited performance as a nervy Jayne. They at least seemed to dig into the character of the piece in an effort to uncover some gold. Alas, it proved as elusive as that sought by the luckless prospectors.