CAOS Musical Productions offer Guys & Dolls in Chichester

The show follows the relationships of two unlikely couples, Sky Masterson, a high-rolling gambler with the pious Sarah Brown, and Nathan with his fiancée Adelaide as Sky takes a bet to woo Sarah and Nathan struggles to find a location for his infamous crap game.

With music and lyrics by Frank Loesser and book by Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows, the show is based on The Idyll of Miss Sarah Brown (1933) and Blood Pressure, short stories by Damon Runyon. It also borrows from other Runyon works. Guys & Dolls premiered on Broadway in 1950, running for 1,200 performances and winning the Tony Award for Best Musical.

Playing Nathan for CAOS Musical Productions is Adam Fox: “Nathan is trying to get a crap game together which was illegal then, a crap game being a dice game. He is a mid-level gangster. He runs a crap game but there are much bigger fish in the pond. He runs the game and gets his cut but soon as a big-time gambler like Sky comes along he is immediately below him. He is a real wheeler-dealer and thinks everything will be alright, that he will be able to sort things. He just says ‘Cool, boys. Don't worry! It's happening!’ but he is a bit frantic. He is really great fun to play and he is really great fun to mess around with. You've got all the jokes and then you've got ‘Oh dear!’

“I saw the production in London and the London production was just phenomenal. The cast was exceptional. They've had a cast change since then. I’ve not seen the new cast but the production that I saw was absolutely stunning.”

And it's an inspiration for the CAOS production now: “We don't have the ability to do it in the round like they did. We are doing it in a more traditional way but a lot of the character choices lean towards the London production.”

Adam has been with CAOS for five or six years now: “They were doing Half A Sixpence. I love the show and I love the character that I ended up getting.”

Since then he's done a number of shows with the company including Dirty Rotten Scoundrel and Legally Blonde. He also directed ‘Allo ‘Allo for them.

“I've been doing this since I was very young, since I was eight. My parents did it in and it was passed down to me. It is just a great thing to do. It's escapism. It's a social outlet and it's the thrill of going on the stage. It's the thrill of making people laugh when you're doing something like this or the thrill of creating an emotional reaction when you're doing something more serious. It's that great feeling that you get when you are provoking an emotional response in the audience in front of you.”

Tickets from the CAOS website.