Adam Godley Scores in Anything Goes

The Broadway revival of Anything Goes hits a special fizzy high whenever Adam Godley turns up as Lord Evelyn Oakleigh, a quirkmeister who ends up singing and dancing into the heart of leading lady Sutton Foster with a nutty number called "The Gypsy In Me".

The wiry, deadpan Godley has won three Olivier nominations for theater work in London and is known from movies like Love Actually and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

But this may be his keeper.

Godley told me in a phoner that though he was in Cabaret in London, he's not a trained singer/dancer. "It helps having Sutton to dance with and Kathleen Marshall giving choreography and Rob Fisher helping with vocals.

"They put an awful lot of trust in me. We had a terrifically long rehearsal period, which was great. We worked like crazy to get there. It's very much a character number, so I felt important to bring as much Lord Evelyn Oakleigh into those numbers as possible."

Godley's Oakleigh exits the number on a rope, a Marshall idea which the actor thought was brilliant.

"I'm up for anything like that," he told me. "It's such a great button on that scene."

"And unlike in Spider-Man, it actually works every night," I suggested, ha ha.

"We mustn't even invoke the name of that show!" he replied with a chuckle.