Theatre review: Annie, Playhouse, Edinburgh
Annie | Rating: **** | Playhouse, Edinburgh
The whole story of orphan Annie, though, is about how these Dickensian conditions fail to crush the spirit of one little red-haired 11-year-old who knows that her parents loved her, because they left behind a locket and a note, saying that they would be back for her. And in no time, thanks to a fairytale stroke of luck, she is carried off to the Fifth Avenue apartment of a billionaire called Warbucks who takes to her so strongly he decides to adopt her, and thence (in this left-field 1970s stage version of the story) to the White House, where Annie slams out a few verses of her big anthem Tomorrow, and inspires President Roosevelt to adopt the New Deal, setting the US economy on the road to recovery.
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Hide AdIn Nikolai Foster’s big, energetic touring production, though, the focus remains firmly on the personal story of Annie, her gorgeous dog Sandy, and her triangular relationship with boozy, money-grubbing Miss Hannigan - played here by Scottish superstar Elaine C Smith, to roars of well-deserved applause - and Alex Bourne’s Warbucks. There’s a slightly over-busy set by Colin Richmond, featuring a puzzling jigsaw theme; and although Nikolai Foster has said that he wants to make the story less saccharine and sentimental, there’s a sense that he perhaps overdoes it slightly with the music, which comes over as more jangled and brash, and less tunefully satisfying, than usual.
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Hide AdWith a terrific 20-strong cast belting out the show’s great numbers though - from the poignant Maybe to Miss Hannigan’s great jazz-inflected Easy Street - there’s never any doubt that this terrific American fairytale of a show is going to win the audience’s hearts. On Tuesday night, little Madeleine Haynes - one of the show’s three alternating Annies - gave us a gorgeous, feisty, shouty little girl mellowing movingly into a beloved daughter. And if Nicola Sturgeon, just re-elected as First Minister, is truly interested in ending austerity, then she could do worse than cut along to the Playhouse this week, and meditate on this iconic American dream-come-true about the historic moment when one great nation turned from a politics of cruelty towards a politics of generosity and hope, and changed world history in the process.
• At the Playhouse, Edinburgh, until 21 May, and on tour