ANNIE at the Piccadilly Theatre: Nostalgia isn't what it used to be...

Well it took a while but finally, 40 years after it's original London opening, I have seen ANNIE on stage!  I must admit that I wasn't particularly bothered about seeing this production when it opened starring Miranda Hart or after Craig Revel Horwood took over, but when it was announced that Meera Syal was taking over the iconic role of Miss Hannigan... well it had to happen!

I remember managing about ten minutes of John Huston's film version as it was so ghastly and since then I have kept the musical at arm's length but know of the show's more successful songs thanks to Grace Jones, cabaret star Jason Graae - and yes, Jay-Z.

So there I was, finally watching Thomas Meehan's odd tale of orphan Annie who escapes from the drab misery of Miss Hannigan's orphanage to live in Oliver Warbucks' mansion on a whim of his to give an under-privileged child a nice time for Christmas. Slowly he is won over by her optimistic outlook and decides to bankroll a search for her parents.  Meanwhile back at the orphanage, Miss Hannigan's crooked brother Rooster and his tarty girlfriend Lily St.Regis decide to scam Warbucks by claiming to be Annie's parents.  Ultimately the Big Daddy, President Roosevelt turns up to sort things out!

Meehan's book has a refreshingly direct trajectory but for all it's shiny-faced optimism, it does occasionally sound disquieting notes, usually around the odd figure of 'Daddy' Warbucks and the idea that money can ultimately buy you anything.

Charles Strouse and Martin Charnin's score certainly has it's high-points - TOMORROW, MAYBE, EASY STREET, YOU'RE NEVER FULLY DRESSED WITHOUT A SMILE and HARD-KNOCK LIFE are all rightly standards - but the rest of the score is a bit forgettable with one too many songs featuring characters and the ensemble standing around saying how lovely Annie is but then it's not like they would call her a shady bitch  It's surprising but maybe not that neither Strouse or Charnin have had as big a success since.

Director Nikolai Foster writes at length in the programme about how he was struck by the underlying sadness and seriousness of a lonely orphan trying to find a home in the deprived world of the the 1930s Depression and cites the show's relevance in the era of Trump, Brexit and Syrian refugees.  Nice try Nikolai... but his production is anonymously slick with all the depth of a postage stamp, it also felt like all the big numbers were like guest slots on the Royal Variety Performance.

Foster also claims that Colin Richmond's standing set and proscenium design of jigsaw pieces references Annie trying to join up with her long-lost parents.  Ah, so that's what it is... and there was me thinking it was a *cough* homage to MATILDA.  Ben Cracknell lights it well however and Nick Winston's choreography is energetic if ultimately not quite integrated.

As I said, we went to see Meera Syal and she delivered a very funny and sly Miss Hannigan while also suggesting, where she could, hints of a lower depth than her lines and business allows.  As Alex Bourne's well-sung Daddy Warbucks or the ever-shrill Grace of Holly Dale Spencer started up yet another song about how gosh-darned lucky they were to have Annie in their lives, it made you realize just how little Miss Hannigan is in the show but Meera made you miss her character and charisma.

We had the Team Madison troupe of kids on and Isobel Khan was delightful as Annie with a nice voice and a confident performance; sadly as soon as the other children started singing their screeching fingers-down-a-blackboard pitch rendered the lyrics totally incomprehensible.  The supporting performances were fairly anonymous, but Russell Willcox stood out as Franklin Roosevelt, he also scooted across the stage in his wheelchair admirably.  Jonny Fines as the nasty Rooster chewed the jigsaw pieces off the set while Kate Somerset How as Lily merely stood by and watched.

Of course the most notable supporting performance was from Amber as the plucky, lovable pooch Sandy but apart from lighting up a scene in the first act, she had to settle for running across the stage during scene-changes and wandering on to join Annie's new-found family at the end.  Amber... you're a star but you need a new agent.

On reflection, it all made for a nice evening - and as you can figure from the above, I always love seeing Meera Syal onstage - but I think ANNIE is now a musical I can chalk up to having seen with no further investigation needed.

"A pair so famous..."

Last week we returned to the Globe Theatre to see the second production in their Romans season ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA.  I had hoped when we booked the tickets for hopefully nice weather and sure enough the gods provided us with a warm evening with a much needed cool breeze sweeping around the auditorium from time to time.

I haven't seen too many productions to compare this one to - in 1986 I saw Vanessa Redgrave and Timothy Dalton make bricks from the straw of Toby Robinson's production and Helen Mirren needed a chiropractor after carrying the 1998 National Theatre production for the length of it's misguided run with no help from Alan Rickman's Eeyore-like Antony.

Jonathan Munby's is certainly the best production of the play I have seen, it had a fluidity and a pace that built up it's own momentum as our ageing lovers raced to their own destinies.  It had an unfussy design which did not distract from the text and I liked Colin Richmond's design choice of having the Egyptians in classical garb while the Romans wore sober Jacobean tunics.

Shakespeare's play has forty scenes - the most in all of his works - and with 34 speaking characters, one can be forgiven for wanting to press a pause button and say "hang on hang on... what happened to Sextus Pompey again?"

But for all it's politicking, this always takes second place to the ever-changing status of the title character's love-affair - they love, they bicker, they make up, they argue - and all the time they don't notice that the Empire they are ruling is vanishing beneath their feet until it is too late.

Any production depends on an equal balance of power between the two lovers, a good reason why the National Theatre was so woeful, but here Clive Wood and Eve Best were believable as both lovers and combatants.

Wood had just the right air of battered steel to make him believable as the ex-Roman general but also played the downfall of Antony with just the right world-weariness and self-disgust.  Eve Best... ah Eve Best.  I have seen her so often play the repressed wallflower - MOURNING BECOMES ELECTRA, THE CHERRY ORCHARD, THE HEIRESS - always there with a sniffle and a hankie up her jacket-sleeve so it was good to see her playing so against this type.

It was a fascinating performance - with one flaw.  Her Cleopatra was wonderfully mercurial, shifting like Egyptian sand: playful, demanding, insecure, aggressive, scornful and proud.  However after Antony's death, Cleopatra is truly alone and having to confront the cold-hearted Octavian who she knows wants to make her his prisoner and will not capitulate to her famous wiles.

Cleopatra knows there is only one escape and Shakespeare raises his game to match her coming demise.  He gives her wonderful speeches and in her final moments she proclaims her immortality to the ages, knowing that she is about to ascend into her own legend.  But Eve Best remained resolutely earthbound, muted to the end.  My immediate response was that this would be a fantastic performance in the Donmar or the Almeida but in this open-air venue which cries out for performances sent out into the void, it was a bit of a damp squib; it robbed Cleopatra of her glory.

The two leads were supported by a good supporting cast, most of them doubling up to fill the requirements of the play: Philip Correia as a boastful Sextus Pompey, a player about to get played by his fellow-Romans as well as a compassionate Dollabella; James Hayes as good as ever as Lepidus, another pawn in the game between Octavian and Antony, as well as the last-minute comic relief of the snake man and Peter Bankolé stood out as the hapless messenger who has to inform Cleopatra that Antony has married Octavian's sister and then as Eros, Antony's loyal aide.

Sirine Saba was a playful Charmian, Cleopatra's faithful servant, nicely playing the early scene when the Soothsayer informs her she will outlive her mistress, while Jolyon Coy was a chilly Octavian, always plotting Antony's downfall and proving himself Cleopatra's nemesis.  The best supporting performance however was Phil Daniels as Enobarbus.  With excellent diction and wonderful timing, he stole every scene he was in and deservedly earned a round when he exited after delivering the famous "The barge she sat in..." speech.

 

The production plays until August 24th and I highly recommend it.  I am now looking forward to seeing the Globe's JULIUS CAESAR in a month's time.

ps. If you can get seats in the front of the gallerys you also get a small amount of gold glitter to sprinkle over the rail at Antony and Cleopatra's wedding parade - I think I sprinkled with a grace that even Will would have approved of!