Annie jr

 
What a lovely evening we had watching Pleasure Folk Jr’s production of “Annie Junior”, which is a shortened version of the popular musical show Annie, based upon the Harold Gray comic strip “Little Orphan Annie”,with music by Charles Strouse, lyrics by Martin Charnin, from a book by Thomas Meehan. This family musical tells the story of Annie an orphan, who believes that one day her parents will come to collect her from the Orphanage, but then suddenly something wonderful happens as out of the blue billionaire Mr Warbucks invites an orphan to stay at his mansion for Christmas. Annie is chosen and she and Warbucks get on so well that he decides to adopt her, but Annie is still anxious to find her real parents, so a large reward is offered to find them. But, Miss Hannigan, the orphanage manager, has other ideas and plots with her brother Rooster and his girlfriend Lily to swindle the reward from Warbucks by pretending to be Annie’s parents. However, their plot fails after Warbucks finds out the truth about Annie’s real parents, and everything ends happily when he officially adopts Annie.
It was exciting to see young actors perform in a more traditional musical and here the talented cast were guided in their endeavours by a very experienced production team which consisted of Director Gemma Briscoe, Musical Director Nancy Wells and Choreographer Liz Wainwright, which resulted in a good entertaining show enjoyed by the appreciative audience.
Isla Graham showed plenty of confidence, in the title role of Annie, singing well and charming everyone, she was a little star, with a strong stage presence. Sancha Wheble was also confident as the permanently worse for drink, and comedic element of the show, Miss Hannigan, and Sancha got plenty of laughs from the audience while displaying the maturity needed for this role. Miles Gardner as Billionaire Mr. Warbucks and Hannah Charnock as his Personal Assistant Grace Farrell both produced nice characterizations and gave good secure performances in their roles. Then there was Harry Geldart who understood his role of opportunistic criminal Rooster very well with Millie Pendleton as his girlfriend Lily, who was spot on with her interpretation, they both complemented each other well. Also there were some nice performances by the actors in the smaller cameo roles. Generally accents, diction and projection were good and the stage area was used very well by the cast. The Orphans gave good enjoyable renditions of their musical numbers “It’s a Hard Knock Life” and “You’re Never Fully Dressed Without a Smile”  and along with the main chorus sang with lots of gusto and performed  the well thought out effective choreography very well with some expertise and with lots of energy, and they all supported the principle cast securely. Music was provided by the very reliable Nancy Wells on the piano with the help of Ciara Pattern on the drums. 
The important stage set, and props were just right for the type production and venue, there was smooth transitions between scenes and along with some very good technical input and excellent costumes all added to the authenticity and feel of the production. 

Congratulations to Gemma Briscoe and to everyone involved in this show which put a smile on the faces of the audience, you all did a great job in bringing this charming story to life. thank you for making my friend and I so welcome.

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