Annie

The last live music­al I saw was Jesus Christ Super­star in about 1990,  to be hon­est I’m not your aver­age music­al review­er. How­ever, I do regard myself as a bit of an Annie expert because it played the very import­ant role of being the movie I went to for my 10th birth­day.

Annie was in fact a bit of a Big Deal. It was at the lovely St James theatre and the place was heav­ing with people on Sat­urday night. Loads of gor­geous wee tots dressed up to the nines. As the band played the open­ing med­ley the thrill of being there had my kids com­pletely blissed out and beam­ing.

Annie was played by Amelia Walshe – Hutt rep­res­ent! She kicked off the show with Maybe. This was fol­lowed by the orphans per­form­ing The Hard Knock Life. It was won­der­ful, such a tal­en­ted crew of girls clearly hav­ing a blast.

Su Pol­lard played the role of Miss Han­nigan. I feel like some­what of a Su Pol­lard expert hav­ing watched Hi de Hi reli­giously, and it was dif­fi­cult for me to ima­gine her in the boozy, slightly awk­ward role of Miss Han­nigan, but she owned it. She has a belt­ing great voice and her phys­ic­al pres­ence filled the stage.  Mig Ayesa of Inxs Rock­star fame (really) played Roost­er (which is my oth­er favour­ite Annie char­ac­ter). He had the moves, but it would’ve been good to see a bit more of him. His role was pretty brief.

The set design blew my mind (I’m not doing a very good job of keep­ing my cool, am I?). There was a car, a tram, a giant stair­case and the lights of New York.

Really, if you have some small people, or a love of Annie, this is worth a trip. Mind you, I cry watch­ing flash mobs, so bear that in mind.