"Annie"

Nottingham Royal Concert Hall.

Set in 1930s New York during The Great Depression, brave young Annie is forced to live a life of misery at Miss Hannigan’s orphanage after being abandoned by her real parents. Her luck soon changes when she’s chosen to spend Christmas with famous billionaire, Oliver “Daddy” Warbucks. Meanwhile, the spiteful owner of the orphan’s home, Miss Hannigan has other ideas and hatches a plan to spoil Annie’s search for her true family…

Starring Craig Revel Horwood as Miss Hannigan, Craig is a seasoned performer where playing a woman is concerned and that shows; he has always looked so comfortable in this role. His facial expressions, which come with performing in panto I suspect, show exactly what Miss Hannigan thinks of the little girls.

Over the years I've seen several Miss Hannigan's but with Craig we get one who gets the accent and gin soaked attitude spot on. I knew he had a good voice, and the dancing goes without saying. I also know that his acting is good, all you have to do is watch him on "Strictly", but this isn't the first time that I've seen Craig in this role. Seeing him again, I noticed a few slightly different things which positively added to the role. He's also one of the few performers who can get a round of applause even before he has said a word.

Amelia Adams plays Grace Farrell, secretary to Oliver Warbucks who has been sent to the orphanage to choose an orphan to stay at Warbucks over the winter holidays. Her voice is a dream to listen to, which makes her singing CV no surprise Lovely to look at and delightful to listen to.

Oliver Warbucks is played by Alex Bourne, who I've seen twice before playing Warbucks, in 2016 and again in 2019 when I also saw Craig as Miss Hannigan for the first time. You can always tell an actor who is well versed in his role because he is just so natural, and Alex is smooth and natural as the billionaire Warbucks.

Paul French plays Rooster, Miss Hannigan's wayward brother. Paul brings a new level of slime to this production, almost snake-like in his movements and his eyes ooze greed. Great vocals and the description of snake-like can also be used to describe his dancing. Those hips don't lie! Wonderful musical baddie and the audience were not sure whether to cheer or boo him for his final bows.

Rooster's latest squeeze, Lily St. Regis is played by Billie-Kay. Great voice and personality for this role, but her dancing blew me away. What a mover!

The role of Annie is shared by Zoe Akinyosade, Harlie Barthram and Poppy Cunningham. Tonight, we saw Poppy. The Annies are joined by three teams of young performers who play the residents of Miss Hannigan’s orphanage.

Poppy is a star in the making, a real professional. Even in the opening number "Maybe", which is a gentle ballad, Poppy completely zoned out the person who was shouting things from the balcony and delivered a gorgeous rendition of the song. Poppy is one of those eleven-year-old actors you love to hate due to the talent they have; a real young triple threat who can sing, dance and act, and do so with ease. I am sure that the other two Annies will be just as wonderful to watch as Poppy is.

Of course, we focus on Annie, well it is her story after all, but this group of orphans have equal amounts of talent and star quality as the titular character. I am not going to pick out any particular actor as every single one of them delivered with such energy and belief in their character. And they all certainly had been taken very close notice of their vocal coaches and musical director because they were pitch perfect, every one. These are the next West End stars in the making.

Also sharing their role is Sandy, the dog, who trotted across the stage whenever a scene change was needed, making sure that the audience cooed over them, diverting eyes from the rapid scene changes. I've absolutely no idea whether it was Darcy, Boris or Lily who was on stage tonight. Couldn't have been Boris as he's looking for a new role.... sorry, wrong Boris! May have been Lily as she has the darker fur.

I am sure that there have been some things added to this show and I say that because there were a few little bits sprinkled throughout that I could not remember from the times that I'd seen the show previously. The section when the police officer (David Burrows) was more interested in Miss Hannigan's front caused more laughter, but these little additions just made the presentation very fresh.

Everybody knows "Tomorrow" from the soundtrack, but there are loads more earworms like "Maybe", "You're Never Fully Dressed Without A Smile", "Easy Street", "I Don't Need Anything But You", "Little Girls" and of course "It's A Hard Knock Life". I honestly could not remember "A New Deal For Christmas" previously, but it must have been in the other productions, but here it sounded new. I also thought that some of the arrangements of the songs were different, again bringing a fresh feel to the whole show. Musical Director Joshua Griffiths has opened my ears up to a new sounding Annie soundtrack.

Directed by Nikolai Foster, who is the Artistic Director at Leicester Curve. This production just shows why he has been labelled "world class". It's pacy, no hanging around; for example, when we usually see Annie escaping in the laundry trolley near the start, we don't see this due to being diverted by the flagrant flirting by Miss Hannigan with Bundles. We only realise that she has gone when the orphans give the game away. Just one scene that has been changed slightly but scythes seconds off of a production, and as the show lasts two hours and twenty minutes with a twenty-minute interval, this is proof that a world class Director can still include everything and reduce the running times.

Choreographed by Nick Winston. Once more in this field of excellence I noticed newness emerging. Could I really have forgotten that big tap dance sequence? The dancers were kaleidoscopic with their choreography which gave a whole new air of, well almost Disney-esque proportions. From the wonderful "Hard Knock Life" buckets and mops choreography for the child actors to the high kicking "Easy Street" and the classy "NYC" routine, for anyone with a love of dance, they will be completely enthralled by this area of performance.

The Set and Costume Designer is Colin Richmond. the set looking like a giant jigsaw which could also represent that the pieces of Annie's life are all coming together - maybe I'm thinking too deep. We didn't need to see skylines of New York for the "NYC" scenes and we didn't need to see the lavish surroundings of Warbuck's mansion with sweeping staircases and chandeliers. Who needs them when the actors paint their own pictures with their dialogue. The costumes were Fab U Lous, showing the levels of social standing and class at a glance.

I love this musical; I am an utter fannie (fan of Annie) and every time I see this show, I love it more and more, whether it be a local production or a big, shiny touring production. You can see that everyone involved in this also loves it, and let's face it, what's not to like. The age-old triumph of good over the Hannigans. This show, if you've never seen it before, and believe me there are some rare specimens of audience member who has not, will leave you with a warm, fuzzy feeling in your middle regions as you exit the Concert Hall singing "Tomorrow, tomorrow, I love ya tomorrow" at the top of your voice. Or like me, just in your head on the bus home.

"Annie" is at the Nottingham Royal Concert Hall until Saturday 17 June.