Annie Get Your Gun began, like many of the great musicals, with a series of unexpected events. Dorothy Fields was a woman at a loose end in 1945 and her good friend Ethel Merman was depressed after the closing of her first flop and wanted Fields to write a new show for her. Fields couldn’t come up with a single idea. Later, on passing a shooting gallery she remarked `Why does it always have to be the man who’s the marksman, haven’t you ever heard of Annie Oakley?´. Produced by Rodgers and Hammerstein and scored by Irving Berlin the show became a `good old-fashioned smash´ with songs such as ‘Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better’ and ‘There’s No Business Like Show Business’ becoming classics.