Annie - Scotsman Review

Talented cast Cook up storming success

MUSICAL REVIEW
THOM DIBDIN

Annie ****

Church Hill Theatre

STRONG singing, tight choreography and a couple of individual performances which are of a five-star quality ensure this Annie is one to remember.

Not only it is often so good that you forget it is being put on by local amateur company Tempo, but it is a production which easily surpasses the professional touring production which was at the Festival Theatre last autumn.

Every production of Annie needs a great little performer in the title role. And Tempo have found exactly that in Danielle Cook, who alternates in the role with Rebecca Stenhouse. Cook has a strong, clear voice, which is exactly right when she is leading her fellow orphans in the opening number, Hard Knock Life.

And while she’s helped by the fact they are drilled to perfection in their dance routines, it does no harm that she can dance a bit herself.

It is a voice which rivals the grown-ups. By the time Annie has run away from the orphanage, brought a ray of light to Hooverville and met mega-rich Oliver Warbucks, she is more than ready to lead the President of the United States in a couple of show-stopping verses of Tomorrow.

Professional productions get egotistical household names to play Miss Hannigan, the drunken, spiteful woman who runs the orphanage. Which makes Norma Kinnear’s job in that role all the harder. But after being upstaged by her charges for a few minutes, she soon realised it is not a role it is possible to over play.

If the members of the kids’ chorus are excellent in their routines, when the show moves into Warbucks’ mansion the adults prove they are just as capable.

The succession of servants who come on to welcome Annie make their routines look easy and never appeared to be uncomfortable.

Once Donald Budge appears as Warbucks, he and Lesley Rooney who plays his assistant, Grace Farrel, have enough on-stage presence to ensure the action continues to revolve as much around them as it does around the ever-forceful Annie.

This is an ambitious show, but it is also one which has been put on by a team which knows its own limitations.

The sound, so often a bugbear, is clear throughout. But most impressive is how the backstage team manage to squeeze such a large cast and an imposing set onto the stage and then make them all disappear into the wings.

Yes, there were several points in which things went wrong. But it is the way that the cast glide over the technical glitches which is what you remember. Of course not every soloist is as strong in voice as the professionals. Yet none have that problem of thinking they are better than they are.

A real treat all round. Even for cynics.