Annie - Musical at Keller

Annie The Musical | Official Trailer (2017)
London Theatre Direct

I can't say as I enjoyed the show. Most of the singing grated on my ears. However I can't tell you whether it was the singing, the sound system or my ears. It sounded like it was being overdriven. Or maybe I am just used to the sound that comes out of my Blue Tooth speaker and live music is just different. Whatever, the kids were just horrible, most of the rest just blared. Daddy Warbucks and his personal assistant were much better, they actually sounded like music.

But it's a curious show. It's set in 1933 right in the depths of the depression. We have half a dozen Hoovervilles in New York City. Things are pretty grim. Annie is living in an orphanage with half a dozen other little girls and she suddenly gets plucked out of her miserable existence and deposited in a royal palace. It's a ridiculous fantasy but it gives us an opportunity to examine poverty and wealth.

The 'aww' exclamation from nearly everyone in the audience when the dog appeared on stage was surprising. It was also a bit puzzling. Hasn't anyone ever seen a dog before?

Complete Little Orphan Annie Volume 15

The show is based on the comic strip Little Orphan Annie. I used to read it when I was a kid. I couldn't tell you what it was about, but I do know most of the principle characters:

• Annie
• Sandy, her dog
• Daddy Warbucks, super wealthy industrialist
• Punjab, a mysterious dude from India
• Asp, another mysterious dude.

Punjab and Asp are mysterious because all I recollect is that they were characters in the strip. I know nothing else about them. I used the picture from Amazon because it was the only one that had all the characters in it. I don't know who the chick is.

The Wikipedia article is enlightening and entertaining. Among other things, Harold Gray, the creator of the strip, hated FDR and his policies. I've heard some criticism of FDR's policies, but he was in charge and that's what we got. It's not enough to have a better idea, you need to convince the people in power that your idea is better. The convincing part can be a hard row to hoe. In the show Warbucks and FDR were at least cordial.

The blurb from the Amazon book paints a pretty good picture:

A chronological reprinting of one of the most important comic strips of the 20th Century. Annie is a cultural icon--in both her red-headed, blank-eyed appearance, and as the embodiment of American individuality, spunk, and self-reliance. Even those who've never read the comic strip are keenly aware of the plucky orphan, her loveable mutt Sandy, and her adoptive benefactor, Oliver "Daddy" Warbucks, through the Broadway play, the hit movie, and the song "Tomorrow," made famous by both.

It's "Open Season for Trouble" as America's spunkiest kid, "Daddy" Warbucks, and his bodyguards Punjab and The Asp battle wily Communist spies, search for a potentially game-changing mineral known as QX-7, contend with small-town cheats, and make a frightful discovery about disappearing patients at a shady rest home. The action ranges from the played-out mining town of Fiasco, where "Daddy" made his first million, to the land of the genii, where Punjab dispatches his enemies. Meanwhile, Annie and Sandy are separated, but their inevitable reunion may be a silver lining inside a very dark cloud! Volume 15 collects the daily strips and full-color Sunday pages from March 13, 1950 to October 28, 1951 in five vivid stories filled with mayhem and murder. It's not for the faint of heart!