Annie Soundtrack

Price: £9.04

Isabelle’s school put on two Christmas musicals this year – Bugsy Malone with the older kids and Annie with the younger. I didn’t really know what to expect, I hadn’t been to a school musical since I played Gertie Cummins (yes, a girl – I went to an all-boys school from the age of 8 ) in “Oklahoma!” myself, but I ended up enjoying it enormously. Doing these things as a kid, making a mistake IN FRONT OF ALL THOSE PEOPLE was horrifying, but when you’re in the audience the mistakes and the oddball things the children do are most of the fun – like a girl in senior infants reprimanding her classmate for looking the wrong way on stage, or a looooong pause in the dialogue ending in one boy reminding another of his lines in a loud whisper.

Isabelle’s class played a chorus of orphans. They shuffled onstage in their “orphanage-y” outfits, holding hands and blinking in the stage lights and looking tiny, to sing and do a kind of action dance during two of the songs. Really the experience was a bit overwhelming for Isabelle – she had sung the songs at home enough that Heather picked up the chorus of “Tomorrow” (singing “Tomowwo, onee a dee aweee” in her high chair), but on stage she spent half her time try to spot me and Niamh in the crowd, staring at the older girls and licking her lips over and over. She was still my favourite actor on the stage, of course, but I think she’ll enjoy it more next year.

This CD has become very popular in the house since. The big hit has been “The Hard-Knock Life” (you might know the chorus from the Jay-Z tune) which has knocked “Emmo dong” (“Elmo’s Song”, from Sesame St) off the number 1 spot in Heather’s most-requested-music list. “Daddeee! Had not IIIIFE!”, she says. Quite right too, it’s an absolute cracker. Other favourites are “Maybe” and “You’re never fully dressed without a smile”, and they’ve infiltrated themselves into mine and the kids’ consciousness to the extent that, at this stage, we’re starting to wreck Niamh’s head:

“Aaaargh! Guys! Please! It’s like I’m surrounded by the cast of Annie with you all breaking into song! Can’t you be quiet for JUST ONE MINUTE?”