Theatre Review: Annie at Theatre Royal Concert Hall

For those familiar with the musical, Annie is one of the staple theatrical productions that children in Nottingham and beyond would have learned the songs from the Book, or acted in a version of the production at their school.  The end of summer is coming fast and the audience at the Royal Centre was full of children, families and people like me reminiscing about when they first had their ‘Annie’ experience. 

For the uninitiated, Annie is the story of a young girl living in a 1930’s workhouse, keeping her daily mantra to be reunited with the loving family who abandoned her at birth. Large-scale pieces of jigsaw provided the backdrop to the beautifully versatile set.  The punchy lighting by Ben Cracknell, was cleverly incorporated into those jigsaw pieces.  This complemented the set and costume design by Colin Richmond, which both punctuated, yet smoothed the story transitions from the workhouse to the downtown streets, uptown to the Broadway scene and to Daddy Warbucks (Alex Bourne) world and back down to Mrs Hannigan (Claire Sweeney)’s depressing workhouse.

Whilst the start of the musical drops us directly into the workhouse with the young orphans played by the vibrant Rockefeller Team, the first thing that hits is the deep New York accents, placing us across the pond with energy and the youthful cheekiness of their familial collective. Their delivery as a team was sharply honed, with an intensity that allowed for nuance and comedic timing.  Even their scenes with Mrs Hannigan overly hints at the mutual respect underlying their combative performances together which aligns with the work of Company Wellbeing and Culture lead, Denise Freeman.

The presence of the orchestra was an unexpected joy elevated by the sharp arrangements of Musical Supervisor and Orchestrator, George Dyer, and the precision of Musical Director Nick Tudor.  The instruments emphasised the high production values and underpinned strong musical theatre voices, especially that of Annie (June Young).  To experience this was far beyond a school production in the eighties with a tape, or the nineties with a CD, or in 2026 streaming the soundtrack version - of which there are many more than first thought.  This combined with the slick collaboration between the choreography by Nick Winston, which held metaphorical motifs and the props that were never out-of-place, such as at the radio station, provided a full, fat musical that you could place all of your hopes for more sun in.  Just to say, in the first half, look out for the how the two New York taxis are depicted, and also the horse-drawn, or rather the ensemble-drawn carriage that Grace Farrell (Tanisha Mae-Brown), Daddy Warbucks and Annie take at the end of their Broadway night-out.
 
The ensemble provided the historical context of life in the Depression of the 1930s before switching to the full staff team who served Daddy Warbucks.  The ensemble cast with their quick costume changes and graceful choreography worked really well together with notable performances by Yujin Park and Issy Khogali.  [The ensemble also served another purpose in gently shifting the perspective of the lives lived at that time through a time-space reality of Nottingham City’s status which indicates higher deprivation levels than 94% of English local authority districts. This in turn has an impact on hardship indicators like foodbank usage and child poverty (Source: Nottingham Insight).

After the iconic songs with insightful lyrics and towards the end, the ensemble and full cast performed a festive themed song reminding us that the next season is soon to arrive and the school year is to commence regardless of whether we acknowledge this tonight, ‘Tomorrow’ or not.  With a standing ovation received tonight, this was a sunny ending that shone fully and deservingly.

Annie played at Royal Concert Hall Nottingham from Tuesday 1 to Sunday 6 September 2026.