King’s Theatre, Glasgow – until 20 April 2019
Reviewed by Linda McLaughlan
5*****
‘A Musical Delight no matter what your age’
The King’s was full of excited children and parents as well as grandparents for the opening night night of a well loved classic. Everyone knows the story of Annie and how she came about to be left in an orphanage in New York New York being looked after by Miss Hannigan (played by Anita Dobson) if it can be described as such. Annie (played by Ava Smith in this show) dreamed of her parents one day coming back to get her because she believed they would. Set in the 1933 America is in the great depression and many people are out of work and living conditions are dire for many Americans who have fallen into hard times with many living on the streets.
The production takes you through the journey as seen by a child who hangs onto the hope that everything will be okay and emanates in the classic song Tomorrow as she holds onto a precious necklace given to her by her parents and encourages the children and adults around her that ‘the sun will come out tomorrow’ and everything will be okay. Annie’s future looks bright when Daddy Warbucks (played by Alex Bourne) welcomes her into his (a little hesitant at first) and realises that despite all his money and wealth he has been missing something very precious in his life, a family and he wants to adopt Annie to be his daughter. Morals are then brought into question when Daddy Warbucks sets out to find Annie’s real parents with the help of Franklin Roosevelt (played by Gary Davis) and thousands of couples claim to be the parents of Annie for the reward on offer.
There are non more corrupt than Rooster and Lily (played by Richard Meek and Jenny Gayner) who come up with a plan along with Rooster’s sister Miss Hannigan to claim Annie and the reward and skip the country…..without Annie who they plan to get rid of.
Like all good stories Annie ends on a positive note not just for herself and the children of the orphanage but also for all Americans as despite the hard times there are positive plans being put in place to make the country prosper.
So the moral of this classic production is remember that no matter how bad you feel life gets there is also a solution and it is not as bad as you think.