Annie

This production was excellent with a fantastic cast, great direction, creative choreography and musical direction. This was by far the best Annie I have ever seen with lots of energy, great casting and wonderful performances and characterisations.

 

The whole cast were clearly enjoying themselves and that always exudes its way into the audience. With nearly 40 in the cast a special mention goes to the production team who really had worked their socks off to enhance the natural talent of the young performers on stage, some of which were appearing for the first time. The show allows lines and parts for many of the ensemble players who all performed brilliantly.

 

The sets looked fabulous and with good use of props never held up the action for scene changes. The props and costumes worked well for each character. The lighting complimented the scenes and the sound worked well.  

 

The Orchestra sounded great under Alasdair’s baton and the cast harmonies were well executed. The choreography looked very effective in chorus numbers as well as with the orphan numbers. The choreography was well executed and looked very effective and with such a big cast and varying  abilities was well thought out.

 

Annie was fantastically played by Lily Ferris who has so much stage presence and great vocals. Her portrayal was exceptional for such a young performer. She interacted so well with her fellow cast members and worked so well with Sandy the dog played by Bree. A lovely warm performance Lily, Well done.

 

All of the orphans were great in their roles with lines delivered clearly and songs sang with great vocals and much enthusiasm. A special mention to Emily Marshall as Molly who had great stage presence and perfect comic delivery.

 

Oliver Warbucks was brilliantly played by Alfie Harris who had a lovely warmth to his acting and sang his numbers beautifully. It was lovely to see you back on the Heywood stage Alfie after your adventures in London.

 

Isobel Coughlan was lovely as Grace Farrell with clear gorgeous vocals and her scenes with Annie were stunning and well directed.

 

Robyn Valentine as Lily and Daniel Gordon as Rooster worked really well together and put in great performances especially as they have characters within characters when pretending to be Annie’s Mum and Dad. Good delivery of dialogue, dance moves and vocals.

 

Lucy Grogan was absolutely brilliant as Miss Hannigan with great comic touches and characterisation. Her vocals were fantastic and dance moves still kept her in character as the drunk orphanage manager. Playing drunk is not an easy thing to achieve especially making sure your diction is clear but Lucy really pulled this off. Lucy commanded the stage whenever she was on it and I couldn’t take my eyes off her as she was never out of character.

 

As I said at the beginning this was the best I have ever seen Annie performed especially by a youth group and a lot of this is the way it was directed both musically and creatively but also the bond these performers have with each other.  Thank you all so much for a wonderful evening. 

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