Annie

Set in early 1930s New York during The Great Depression, brave young orphan Annie is forced to live a life of misery and torment at Miss Hannigan’s orphanage, hanging on to hope that her parents will one day return to pick her up. Annie has won the hearts of audiences across the world for more than forty years, spawning a plethora of successful musical productions and three hit feature length films.     

Rosiee Lamb gave us a charmingly plucky portrayal as the little orphan Annie, pleasantly drawing out the comedic elements of the role which was pinnacle to her rendering. Her acting skills and evident mature understanding of the character appeared to be effortlessly drawn out which was entirely enjoyable to observe, giving the beloved character a new lease of life.

Alice Elwell seamlessly portrayed the boozed-up villainess Miss Hannigan, the orphanage matron, who’s yearning for love but incapable of showing or receiving it. There were a couple of memory lapses from Alice on the evening I attended though she recovered from them with the upmost professionalism and soldiered on like a true artiste without a glimmer of being fazed.   

I’m rather reluctant to admit that I’m flummoxed by the setup of the music. At a guess, I’d say half of the score was performed live with the other half pre-recorded, rightly or wrongly that’s the impression I got. Whichever part of it was live (may well have been all of it) certainly wasn’t being performed in the auditorium. You’d think some information in the programme would solve this mystery. Most of what we heard from the musicians felt as though it was live – we got some unfortunate screeches from the brass. The togetherness of vocalists and musicians was a shortcoming to this presentation which offered some sticky moments that were tricky to recover from. The volume could have been tinkered with to restore some balance as the musicians were low in comparison to the vocals. Furthermore, some of the principals would have benefited spending more time with the Musical Director as some were not so comfortable, secure or confident with delivering the score as some of the other leading players.     

The in-house constructed set looked and worked terrifically for this space with astute formations of screens, seamlessly sliding in and out of position, suitably arranged and decorated to inform us of where we were throughout the performance. We did get half of an orphanage in the mansion at one point in act II but thankfully it was only for a short scene so we can ignore and forgive that. The look of the production and how if flowed - costumes included - is to be commended. ‘Annie’ is not a straightforward show to scale down without giving an impression of missing something, yet the mission was admirably achieved thanks to an innovative approach. I got the impression that more was done for this production away from the rehearsal room, all of which were virtuous to the overall presentation, however, equal focus and attention was needed on the actual material being performed as several moments struck as though the cast didn’t quite understand what they were saying.

It’s always unfortunate when parts have been shared across alternate performances and seems slightly unfair in some aspects though it’s an incredibly common feature in youth theatre and I fully support how it proffers opportunities throughout a generous membership. Oddly, just one role had been double cast amongst this line up with Julia Whitworth as Grace Farrell at this performance. Julia gave a very relaxed presentation which in one respect is commendable to appear so unperturbed being on stage though a little animation to her expressions and physicality would have helped to yield the necessary dynamism to inject life into the character. Julia sang with competence and conveyed many of the qualities required of the actress playing this role but I sensed she was reluctant – perhaps nervous – to let her guard down to give us the performance she’s visualising.

Annie is commonly mistaken as an overly fluffy musical without much substance, yet it’s centred around and is a lesson in politics focussing on a cornerstone in American history.  Therefore, I was rather surprised that the finale ‘A New Deal For Christmas’ had been replaced with a reprise of ‘I Don’t Need Anything But You’ which didn’t wrap up the compelling political narrative that this show is centred around.   

Our Daddy Warbucks was offered by Edward Massey who delivered an act beyond his years, despite the occasional flustered moment tripping up over his words (of which he had many to memorise) he delivered the authority of the successful entrepreneur though at times I wasn’t convinced he empathised with what he was saying but this is a tremendously difficult part to convey by someone so young, the potential is certainly there for Edward to become a fine actor indeed and he’s demonstrated he’s on the right path.  Making sturdy contributions were Jonathan Kingsley and Maisie Greaves as evil sidekicks Rooster and Lily, each bringing copious intrigue and humour much to our delight and Joe Lomas left a favourable impression as Drake.     

Annie gets a lot of bad press amongst musical theatre aficionados yet I’m unsure why as it’s a fantastic story with a proper plot that takes you on an emotional journey. It is still relevant today in terms of government disturbance and what it is to be in a society that treats people with contempt. Then there are these incredibly well structured, old school Broadway show tunes that are works of genius. This title has been a firm favourite of mine for many years and Cygnets put on a worthy rendition of it. Congratulations.   

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