For his directorial debut and his first show in Canberra, Martyn King will be tackling one of the classic Broadway musicals of the 1930s.

"It's one of those shows where you know the songs," he says.

"My first experience of it was the opening credits of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom."

That movie began with Anything Goes sung in Mandarin, but the cast in this Canberra Philharmonic Society production will be performing it in the original English – along with many other Cole Porter numbers such as You're the Top, Blow, Gabriel, Blow and I Get A Kick Out of You.

Originally produced in 1934, Anything Goes has had its book revised numerous times over the years with other Porter songs being interpolated, although the basic scenario romance and comedy aboard an ocean liner travelling from New York to London remains the same. Philo is using the version employed in the 1987 Broadway and 1989 West End revivals co-written by Timothy Crouse, son of Russel Crouse, one of the original librettists.

Billy Crocker (played by Marcus Hurley) is a lowly stockbroker in the Wall Street firm owned by wealthy Eli Whitney (Steven Galinec). Billy – who is friends with evangelist-turned-nightclub-singer Reno Sweeney (Kelly Roberts) – has fallen in love with Hope Harcourt (Amelia Juniper-Grey), a debutante whose widowed mother (Anita Davenport) wants her to marry the wealthy English aristocrat Lord Evelyn Oakleigh (Jonathan Rush) to secure the family's fortune. The smitten Billy stows away on board the ship all the others are travelling on and he's not the only one: also hiding out are a couple of gangsters on the lam, Moonface Martin (Ian Croker), otherwise known as "Public Enemy Number 13" and his offsider Erma (Emma McCormack).

King – who studied acting in Ballarat – says, "It's one of those shows where there are two ways you can take it: accept it as just a 'bit of fluff' show or dig a bit deeper."

He's tried to take the latter approach as much as possible, encouraging the cast to think about the show's roots in the 1930s after the 1929 Wall Street crash – "it was called the Great Depression for good reason" – and how a show like this provided escapism for audiences while poking fun at the behaviour of the wealthy.

But the emphasis in the show as performed is on slapstick and farce and music and romance as musical director Jim McMullen says, hence the numerous script revisions and song insertions over the years to keep it as fresh and enjoyable as possible for each new audience.

Choreographer Emma Tattam says she's a big Cole Porter fan and relished the opportunity to work on the dances for the show.

"It's nice to do such timeless music and have fun with it, from great big flashy chorus numbers to lovely little duets for Hope and Billy."

She's keeping the dances in the 1930s musical comedy style but doesn't feel hemmed in – "you can have a great time with it and put your own spin on it". Not being a tap dancer herself, she's enlisted Riley Gill to choreograph the tap numbers and those among the cast who have experience in tap are tutoring those who have none to ensure that all 37 cast members will be on stage tapping away in the big numbers.