Annie - UK Tour

Ooh Leslie would be lovely. I have tickets for Edinburgh in October. It wouldn’t be Craig as he’s doing Strictly. Will Anita return for a second stint?

Im waiting to see who is doing the summer stint at Birmingham, if im honest i dont want CRH.

It often is. Historically it's been a bit of a 'thing' - am drams etc too. Paul O'Grady's done it, and a few others.

I've seen the twitter page has been updated with some casting, if I am seeing things correctly it seems there'll be three alternating leads playing Annie two of them of colour which is refreshing and fantastic to see!

Jenny Gayner is Lily St.Regis and understudy Miss Hannigan.

Alex Bourne is back as Daddy Warbucks.

Lesley Joseph joins as Hannigan in September I'm over the moon.

Was going to ask the same! Would like to book for Brum but not if its CRH if im honest.

She looks like she's been electrocuted! 😮😮

Friends saw it tonight.

Terrible apparently.

It's a shame Jonny Fines isn't back for this tour, he really was the best part of the Piccadilly run.

Nipped to Oxford last night to see the tour. It's very much the same as the last tour and the West End run with a few minor changes in the staging.

Taziva-Faye Katsande was on as Annie. Very good. Amber as Sandy not great, but there's a reason the dog gets very little stage time.

Anita Dobson as Miss Hannigan was excellent. Very Cruella de Vil like, lots of little extra touches to the character. The wig really suited the part.

Alex Bourne continued to be excellent as Warbucks.

The rest of the cast had mostly new people in the roles. Anne Smith is still there as Mrs Pugh and presumably cover Miss Hannigan as well. 42nd Street fans might appreciate a bit of Thomas Audibert in a sailor suit. A very diverse group of kids, which is good.

A few cases where they turned the microphones on late, which is always annoying.

The front row seats in the New Theatre have a great close view, lots of legroom, slightly back from the stage. The main annoyance is that they kept moving, there was a woman who kept shifting in her seat at one side moving the whole row, and various bored kids (and possibly their parents) in the row behind who kept knocking the seats. There weren't many kids and most were well-behaved, but there were just enough who weren't able to sit through a show like this.

Seems well-settled in by now and worth a look before Craig Revel Horwood rejoins the cast.

Caught it at the Mayflower last night as have never seen it before.

The kids were beautiful strong singers, but Craig RH's mic was not loud enough so Little Girls was much more muted than it should be. He could up the nastiness by another 80% and it still wouldn't be big enough tbh, his acting seemed to be thumping off a padded wall and none of the lines really landed.

Book is totally bizarre and lots of kids in the audience were audibly restless, especially the whole schtick with the president (wtf). Such weird lyrics in a finale song, about people being hungry and cold but it's okay because AFTER the musical apparently it'll all get better? Okay then. Also pretty jarring because of the mounds of golden presents, whilst the secretary/eye candy is glittering with jewels and silk and they're singing about people having bare cupboards at Christmas.

I suspect this is the musical itself rather than this particular production, but I don't see how Lily/Rooster/Hannigan are particularly monstrous compared with Warbucks lolling around whinging about how some of his factories are closed.