Review: ANNIE, King's Theatre, Glasgow, February 9 2016
Set in 1933 during The Great Depression, Annie is one of the children living in Miss Hannigan's orphanage. Annie was left there as a baby with a note from her parents, promising that they would return to get her. During Annie's search to find her real parents she is offered the chance to spend the holidays with billionaire Oliver Warbucks and Miss Hannigan hatches a plan to sabotage her happiness.
Annie is a well known musical, I'm not sure I've met anybody who wouldn't be able to belt out a few lines of "Tomorrow". The songs are classics and I had forgotten how good some of them are - "I Don't Need Anything But You", "Maybe" and "I Think I'm Gonna Like It Here" to name a few.
I've always viewed Miss Hannigan as quite misunderstood - those children would drive anyone to drink. Glasgow favourite Elaine C Smith plays up to the more unlikeable traits of the character with ease and gives an excellent vocal performance. Alex Bourne is a perfectly cast Daddy Warbucks who seems to be having a lot of fun onstage.
The production is the Broadway original and differs slightly to the much loved 1982 movie version. The ending seems a little rushed and there are a couple of songs that weren't in the film. The choreography by Nick Winston was spectacular and really not something I was expecting. The set design by Colin Richmond was also fantastic and reminded me a lot of the set for Matilda.
I confess that I didn't have high hopes for Annie. I think the last time I saw it on stage was a particularly dire school production. I'm thrilled to see such life injected back into a classic musical!
Annie runs at the King's Theatre Glasgow until February 20th.
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