Let’s get some things clear, I’ve not seen the show before, not seen the film, nor read the comic book. I was an Annie virgin and this was a hell of a way to get my clogs popped.

I feel like I’ve been taken roughly down ‘Easy Street’ this evening by a bunch of screeching wailing waifs and a cast of ‘should know betters’. Wobbly pantomime sets, unconvincing characters and terrible, terrible singing, and that was just the opening number with a load of suspiciously healthy looking orphans with not a tooth missing or a case of rickets between them, nor the ability to hold a note either. Oh and the wigs! The horror! I held out for the sight of Sue Pollard as Miss Hannigan - a drunk, cruel and bitter women, surely she’d hit the spot. She hit the bottle definitely and the odd note but was the most unconvincing drunk since Mother Teresa. If I’d drunk as much as she pretended to I’d have probably enjoyed this show. She came on looking like an anorexic Dora Bryant but without the talent, in a bad wig with a funny walk straight off the end of the pier. Her one good song ‘Little Girls’ was hammed up with comedic glee but it went downhill from there.

Let’s get some more things clearer, I’m no obsessive musical queen nor a stage school mum although the audience was full of them, but they were either all related to the cast or too drunk to care, but even they had difficulty mustering up a laugh or more than slight applause. In the first half the only convincing performance and character was the dog, who padded on and fell asleep. This got a round of applause. I rolled my eyes. Annie couldn’t keep a note, even allowing for the terrible smugness of her faux precociousness and the wretched cheap wig. This is supposed to be The Child Role. The child should be able to sing, or perhaps that’s part of the charm. Personally I prefer talented kids. Ones who can dance, sing and act.

Half way through I checked with some other folks, my companion thought it terrible too and the three Queens I met in the foyer, who’d seen Annie 15 times ‘loved it, loved it, loved it darling’ – sigh- but I suspect they would have clapped the dog for wagging its tail. Shortly afterwards they did.

We gave it the benefit of the doubt and endured the second half; I slipped off into deconstructing the story, a very odd thing indeed. Something unsavoury about money buying happiness, sad and lonely women who turn to drink getting carted off in straitjackets, incredibly stunted selfish children and an emotionally crippled millionaire (David McAlister’s Daddy Warbucks) who buys a child to fill up his empty life, then woos and dances with her. At least he could sing. Then there’s the very (very) bad wigs and a troupe of brain dead servants who thought they were in a ‘Britain’s got talent’ ensemble dance number. Trite and very wrong indeed, unless you’re in Malawi.

If you’ve got kids who don’t know what they’re in for then perhaps this is the thing to turn them off theatre for life. If you’re a Sue Pollard fan then you’ll never forgive her, unless you like drag. The sound was terrible, some special effects just weird – snow in a sweaty hot theatre?? - and the band, when not playing over the singers was only bearable. It was also way too long.

There were jokes about the ‘League of Nations’ for god’s sake! Nobody laughed.

Perhaps I’m missing something other than the last three hours of my life, but I think the sun’s going to set on this show, hopefully tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow…

Pass the bottle Sue.

Theatre Royal Brighton
Until 22nd August
www.ambassadortickets.com/1008/664/Brighton/Theatre-Royal-Brighton/Annie