Students at Felixstowe School have taken the final curtain call on their sell-out production of ‘Annie.’

Pupils have been busily rehearsing, and finally unveiled their production to their community on Tuesday, February 15, with their final performance taking place on Thursday.

“It was packed every night,” enthused assistant headteacher Darren Meitiner-Harvey. “They absolutely nailed it.”

The starring role of orphan Annie was performed by Katie Mitton from year 10, with Riley Britchfield (year 10) as Miss Hannigan, Kate Golden (year 9) as Mr Warbucks and Keiron Ryan (year 10) as Rooster.

The choreography was arranged by Shannon Coombs in year 12, while the show was directed by Mrs Pilcher, the school’s head of drama.

Darren Meitiner-Harvey is hugely proud of how his pupils performed.

He said: “The first night, the students were nervous. They just wanted to do a good job and make everybody proud. There was a palpable buzz in the air, and as the show went on, you could see them relax and start to enjoy themselves.

“The final night was amazing, and there were some stand-out performances. They were just outstanding.”

He is very keen to showcase the talent his students have to offer: “The talent that the community have got is just outstanding, so we need to harness it and create those opportunities to show it off.

“The performing arts especially have been absolutely hammered by Covid.

“A lot of performers have lost their confidence over the last couple of years. They're out of practise, they’ve felt rusty. So, it was just great to have a full house every night and see the students blossom.

“We’re really keen on Felixstowe School being known as a centre of excellence for the performing arts, where there are loads of opportunities to get involved.

“Not just performing, but the backstage stuff, the music, the technology, lighting, photography, writing for the school newspaper.

“With shows moving forward, they’ll be filmed by our film students. We're going to make the productions much bigger, so that students get as close an insight into the industry as they can.”