Reviewed by Jodie Crawford

Opening Night verdict ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

It’s a tale we all know, a tale that is engrained in us from an early age. The tale of young orphan Annie, abandoned as an infant at the run down orphanage run by the equally run down Miss Hannigan. Annie and her fellow orphans live a life of chores and hard knocks. Annie’s luck suddenly changes when the Billionaire, Mr Warbucks enters it, from here Annie’s life is turned upside down. 

This production is a classic; it’s filled with everything we want. A cheeky, no-nonsense Annie (played by multi talented Sharangi Gnanavarathan on the night we reviewed) this, amazingly, is her professional debut, which you wouldn’t be able to tell as she was an absolute shining star on the stage, a haggard, meany Miss Hannigan (played by non other than the superstar Craig Revel-Horwood), a gang of energetic and mischievous orphans, and the familiar, nostalgic songs that have been etched into our memories over the years.

This production doesn’t disappoint. It’s fun, high energy, tender and charming. The choreography of Nick Winston is just beautiful, and is perfectly executed by a stellar cast. The set and costume design from Colin Richmond is both clever and captivating and is complemented wonderfully by Ben Cracknell’s lighting design. Everything about this production screams that it’s been directed by the hugely talented and accredited Nikolai Foster; he just brings out such elegance and tenderness in all he directs and this is no exception.

There is no getting a way from the fact that some of the American politics gags are wasted on us as an audience and at times the dialogue can feel a little outdated, but it doesn’t matter – because it’s Annie. And we all know and love Annie and deep down we don’t really want to see it updated for the stage. We want the familiarity of it, we want to be surrounded by the love that Daddy Warbucks has for little orphan Annie.

Alex Bourne (Daddy Warbucks) and Sharangi Gnanavarathan (Annie) shared such wonderful chemistry in the production, and the final scenes together were just pure magic. 

And then there’s our villain, our baddie, our drunken Miss Hannigan played by the incredible Craig Revel Horwood. I won’t lie, I had reservations about this casting, I feared that it would all be a bit panto dame. I was wrong, so wrong. There isn’t anything panto about how Craig plays it. It’s perfection. And that voice! His rendition of Little Girls was outstanding.

I know that many people will buy their tickets based on Craigs presence on stage and yes you guessed it he is utterly fab-u-lous (sorry couldn’t resist!). The production as a whole is a joy, offering something for everyone. The children, the ensemble, all the individual characters and all elements of the staging come together to give us a classic version of one our favourite musicals – Annie.

Annie is on at The Opera House until Saturday 30th September tickets available here.