Cole Porter's 1934 musical set on a cruise ship is the biggest success of Nunn's five years at the helm of the National, and vindicates his policy of staging large-scale revivals of American musicals. As director, however, he has always insisted that musicals, though high profile, are only a small part of the overall programming of the National. As if to prove this, rather than end his reign with Anything Goes, he will actually round off, next year, with a Shakespeare play, Love's Labour's Lost.
The evident labor of love on Anything Goes, however, was anything but lost last night when the show received a standing ovation that was one of the longest the National has ever seen, as well as possibly the loudest.
