Kids, animals, a Wiggle and Warlow: Annie demands you leave your cynicism at the door
The musical based on the Little Orphan Annie comic strip is both joyful and timely – and it’s just opened in Brisbane.
Kids, animals, a Wiggle and Warlow: Annie demands you leave your cynicism at the door
**ANNIE ★★★★
****Lyric Theatre, QPAC, until January 31
**
Annie is a 1977 Broadway smash based on a 100-year-old comic strip about a plucky orphan girl adopted by a benevolent billionaire.
The musical, which won seven Tony Awards, packages up the escapist pleasures of Depression-era movies about rich socialites, with songs of unbridled optimism in the face of grinding hardship. Like Star Wars, which opened a month later, it was exactly what audiences were craving in a gloomy decade, and it ran for six years.
Matilda Casey, Anthony Warlow and Greg Page in Annie. Casey shares the title role with Isabella Hayden and Dakota Chanel.Credit: Daniel Boud
So what has Annie got to offer Brisbane audiences in 2026? Plenty, it turns out, unless you’re the hopelessly cynical sort.
Because of the physical demands of eight shows a week, three girls share the lead role of red-headed Annie (Matilda Casey, Dakota Chanel and Isabella Hayden), while 16 more cover the roles of the other seven orphans.
Many were chosen from local auditions, and to see them sing and dance songs like It’s the Hard Knock Life with the polish of musical veterans is quite astonishing. Hayden played the title role on opening night, and the clarity of her high notes was extraordinary.
As for the show’s dog, it doesn’t put a paw wrong.
Debora Krizak (left) plays the wicked orphanage matron Miss Hannigan, and Amanda Lea LaVergne is Grace Farrell. The musical is based on Harold Gray’s long-running comic strip Little Orphan Annie. Credit: Daniel Boud
They say you should never work with kids or animals, but that has never stopped Anthony Warlow, who has played bald-headed industrialist Daddy Warbucks since 2000. Handpicked to perform the role on Broadway in 2012, he also starred that year in the Australian production directed by Karen Johnson Mortimer, who recreates her work here.
