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.