Annie

This musical, based on Harold Gray’s 1930s comic strip featuring the feisty, ever-optimistic eleven-year-old red-haired orphan, Annie, gives us an insight into life and politics in New York during the Great Depression.

Success of the show therefore rests on the talent of the juvenile lead. Squids cast two teams of eleven orphans who alternate. We saw the White Team with Emily Steel as Annie. Right from her opening number ‘Maybe’ she endeared herself to the audience and carried our support for her plight and eventual good fortune right to the end. I understand the other Annie, Isobel Salisbury, is her equal.

Nathanial Currie was an imposing Daddy Warbucks, the ruthless billionaire who adopts Annie. He revealed a convincing soft side in his delivery of ‘I Don’t Need Anything but You’ towards the end. He was ably supported by Donna Woollard (Grace Farrell, his personal secretary). Jason Kirby was a vocally believable President Roosevelt.

Deanne Scanlan, as the alcoholic tyrant Miss Hannigan who runs the orphanage, Matt French, her criminal brother, Rooster, and Jessica Grundy, his side-kick, Lily St Regis, provided rich comedy relief. Their ‘Easy Street’ routine was a winner.

Directors Michelle Currie and Sharon Walkerden augmented the cast with an all-singing, all-dancing chorus of twenty-five girls aged from five to teens. This certainly made for robust choruses, in particular ‘It’s a Hard Knock Life’ and ‘Tomorrow’.

The cast received enthusiastic acclaim at curtain call.

Jay McKee