What to watch
BBC Proms 2017 BBC FOUR, 8.00PM
Swapping tuxes for cowboy hats, the Proms continues tonight with a staging of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s beloved 1943 musical Oklahoma!
Expect plenty of whip-cracking, thighslapping, Wild-west antics at the Royal Albert Hall, as conductor John Wilson and his orchestra add their signature élan to this story of a love affair between dashing cowboy Curly Mclain (Nathaniel Hackmann) and farmer’s daughter Laurey Williams (Scarlett Strallen). Playing Jud Fy, the brooding, bestial social misfit with designs on Laurey himself, is David Seadon-young. Elsewhere, Belinda Lang stars as the clucking Aunt Eller, and comedian Marcus Brigstocke is Ali Hakim, the Persian huckster battling with the cowboy Will Parker (Robert Fairchild) for the affections of fickle Ado Annie (Lizzy Connolly).
The dance routines are balletic and fast, the hits frequent: the jaunty Surrey With the Fringe on Top, the romantic People Will Say We’re in Love, the lovely I Cain’t Say No, and, of course, the
unmistakable opening
song, Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’. Rachel Kavanaugh, who directed an acclaimed touring production of Oklahoma! in 2015, is at the helm again here. Patrick Smith