Annie, The Musical is being performed by The Ellesmere Port Musical Company at The Gladstone Theatre in Port Sunlight on The Wirral. It’s a lovely theatre, full of character and great architecture. The theatre is situated in the picturesque, scenic village of Port Sunlight. The stage in the theatre was ideal for Annie as it was very spacious for the large cast to perform on. Ellesmere Port Musical. Company will be celebrating their 90th anniversary next year and have produced a variety of musicals, plays and concerts over the decades.
Rob Stevens directed Annie, who obviously put a lot of hard work into directing the show. His dedication and enthusiasm for the show were clearly observed throughout the performance. He has added his own touches to the show too. Additionally, Rob Stevens was also the Choreographer and the dances were good and consistent. With having such a large cast involved in the show, this could prove problematic, but not in this case, the choreography flowed effectlessly. The Musical Director was Craig Price, who had the great job of bringing the musical numbers to life on the stage. There was a good correlation between the songs being performed in the show, with sufficient dialogue too.
Annie, originally produced on a Broadway is based upon the Harold Gray comic strip, Little Orphan Annie, with music by Charles Strouse, lyrics by Martin Charon and book by Thomas Meehan. Annie has had numerous productions in several countries, since opening in 1977, and still remains a firm favourite with theatre audiences everyone, particularly families with younger children.
The principle cast of characters included Annie (Sofia Lawton), Miss Hannigan (Liz Legerton), Oliver Warbucks (Tony Lacey), Grace Farrell (Chloe Donley), Lily St. Regis (Annie Bond), Rooster (Chris Pacitti), Roosevelt (Jerry Fletcher) and Bert Healy/Mr. Bundles (John Denny). The adult ensemble included the actors, Jen Ellison, Mel Hughes, Caireen Candlin, Andy Nicholson, Carol Nickson, Beth Lacey, Paul Corbett, Amy Dainty and Ellie Haynes.
The cast of the orphans included Molly (Alice Edwards), Kate (Chloe Davies), Tessy (Brooke McHugh), Pepper (Daisy Candlin), July (Ella Busow) and Duffy (Millie Grove). The younger orphans included Delilah Fenney, Sasha Green, Nell Lacey, Aeryn Osbourne, Amber Peate, Lilly Fenwick. Sandy the dog was played by Rigby, who always attempted to steal the limelight from Annie, when on stage.
Annie is the timeless classic rag-to-riches tale of an orphan, who dreams of being reunited with her parents and living in a loving home. One particular night, in 1933, Annie decides to escape the orphanage and Miss Hannigan. With help from her friends, she managed to escape from there. On her travels, she finds a stray dog, who she named Sandy and instantly formed a bond with the adorable dog. Annie was soon discovered by a policeman and returned to the orphanage. Grace Farrel, an assistant to billionaire to Oliver Warbucks comes to the orphanage and asks for a child to stay at the mansion for Christmas. As Annie was in the office at the time of Grace’s visit, she picked Annie, Miss Hannigan reluctantly agreed for her to be taken. Once Annie has left, Miss Hannigan becomes even more drunk than normal. Meanwhile, at The Warbucks Mansion, Annie was welcomed there with open arms by all the staff. However, when Oliver returns, he was initially not happy about having an orphan staying in his home and insists she will be taken back to the orphanage. But Oliver soon begins to bond with Annie and finds her company; pure escapism from his high powered job. Annie confided in Oliver about her desperate need to be reunited with her birth parents. Soon after, they put an appeal on the radio offering an award to locate the missing parents. Back at the orphanage, Miss. Hannigan’s brother Rooster and his girlfriend, Lily, all hatch a plan to obtain the award money for themselves. Rooster and Lily begin to make plans to pose as Annie’s missing birth parents in order to claim the reward money with assistance from Miss. Hannigan. Everything seems to go to plan until a revelation was made about the imposters.
The set design was really good, I particularly liked the visual graphics in the backgrounds for all the scenes of the play, which was done incredibly well. I think the visual graphics really helped the scenes flow as they provided different locations for the scenes. Zach Warrington did a brilliant job sourcing the props needed for the show, which fitted into the specific era of Annie. Attention to detail was carefully taken into consideration as all clothes of the characters fitted the era of the show. Derek Boseley, the Lighting Designer, accomplished some great effects to reflect the various moods of the play. A great contrast of light and dark was used to heighten the tensions and emotions of the characters.
The band in Annie included Craig Price, Trish Gaskell and Tim Walker on keyboards, with Stuart Gaskell on bass, Dominic Riverol in guitar and Gordon Macey on reeds. They all did a fantastic job playing instruments for all the songs performed in the show. I particularly liked the overture from the orchestra at the beginning of Annie, which provided a great opening introduction to the show.
All the songs were performed in the play along with the favourites everyone knows, such as 'Maybe', 'Tomorrow' and 'Easy Street'. The vocals of the cast were good, but I thought Sofia’s perfornance singing 'Maybe' and 'Tomorrow' was exceptional. She combined her emotions of her character so well into performance. Acting was of a very good standard overall, but for me, Lawton's, Legerton's and Lacy’s performances stood out. They all displayed different qualities to their characters. Lawton and Lacey added so much warmth and empathy to Annie and Oliver, whilst Legerton was brilliant at scaring the orphans.
Having seen Annie myself several times in the past, I thought this particular performance of the show was really good and did a brilliant job showcasing the talents of local people, especially the younger cast members. Putting shows on like this, gives them a fantastic platform to learn their craft and give the experience of performing in front of a live audience. Annie still remains one of the best-loved timeless classics, and Ellesmere Port Musical Theatre have done a fantastic job putting the show on and giving youngsters the opportunity to perform. Well worth going to see!!!
Reviewer - Mark Cooper
on - 3/10/19
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