Annie Jr by arrangement with Music Theatre International

A great production by this talented group of young people.  Annie Jr is the well-known story of the orphan Annie who is rescued from a New York orphanage by billionaire Oliver Warbucks. The orphans are poorly treated by the orphanage manager, Miss Hannigan, but work hard to make the most of their ‘hard knock life’. After a failed search for her real parents, Annie goes on to influence President Roosevelt to develop his ‘new deal’ to get America out of the depression.  Annie Jr is a slight re-write on the original to make it appropriate for performance by children and young people and in this production all the parts were taken by those aged 16 and under.  Mark Maltby, Director, and Anna Maltby, Musical Director, had worked hard with the young people to pull off a fabulous show which was not in any way pretentious.  They had clearly supported these young performers to play adults with great maturity and ensured a very enjoyable production for the audience and cast alike.

The orphans were lively and enthusiastic, with great delivery.  Molly played by Emily Askew was both sweet and feisty and Kate (Emily Simmons), Tessie (Keira Mae Davis), Pepper (Charlotte Bradshaw), July (Isabella Smith) and Duffy (Nell Butler) created great little characters to allow the audience to share in their toils as they are made to work for the cruel Miss Hannigan.  Their routines were high energy and included super moves and dancing.  ‘It’s a Hard Knock Life’ perfectly set the scene for the great show to come.

Miss Hannigan was well portrayed by Maisie Simmons – who was cruel, but without turning the character into a pantomime villain.  Grace Farrell was beautifully played by Kitty Esberger with great presentation and diction.  Well done to Lewis Maltby in the role of Oliver Warbucks, a super voice and a young man who is sure to be in demand in the future.  A super pairing of Mikey Bacon as Rooster and Ella Sutton as Lily – they were very entertaining and created entertaining characterisations.  George Parker (Bert Healy), Kieran Stinson (Drake) and Paul Bowskill playing both Bundles and President Roosevelt worked well in their roles.

The title role of Annie was taken by Faith Birne, who was hugely impressive in this large role.  She had great poise and played the part excellently.  She interacted well with everyone on stage and sang her solos beautifully.

A number of smaller roles excellently supported the production and together with the orphans and ensemble I was very impressed with the way these young performers transitioned to different roles with ease.  The choreography was perfect for this production and Choreographer, Catherine Enos, created routines which were both fitting for the numbers and suited to the performers.

The costumes were lovely and always appropriate for the character and the age of the performers.  The use of wigs really added to the presentation.   The scenery and props were super with the production having excellent lighting and sound throughout.  I was particularly impressed with the attention to detail on the props – even the buckets were painted to look ‘well used’ rather than newly shop bought.  Sandy, the animatronic dog, was great – a real props find.  Well done to the stage crew who ensured swift changing of scenes as they worked hard to keep everything running smoothly and safely for these young performers.

Very well done to everyone involved – it was a fabulous show and I hope everyone involved (on stage and off) enjoyed it as much as the audience.

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