The story of "Annie" is set in the run up to Christmas 1933. The location is New York City. The backdrop is the depression following the Wall Street Crash. Tens of millions of Americans are unemployed, and shanty towns known as "Hoovervilles" (named after former President Herbert Hoover, not J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI Chief) are spinging up all over the city. President Roosevelt, newly elected, is in a quandry as to what to do. Little does he know that the answer to his prayers will soon arrive in the shape of a small red-haired girl!

Annie is an orphan, abandoned by her parents as a baby at New York's Municipal Orphanage, with half a locket round her neck and a note saying that they would one day return to claim her and produce the other half of the locket as evidence of parentage.

Annie grows up dreaming of the day when her parents will return and is the bane of the Orphanage Manager's life. Miss Hannigan is a drunk, ageing spinster desperate for the company of a good man, or in fact any man. She simply despises Annie, so when Annie is chosen by Oliver Warbucks' secretary, Grace Farrell to spend Christmas at the Billionaire's mansion, she nearly has a fit!

After an awkward start, Annie thaws the ice cold heart of the Industrialist and he resolves to adopt her, but to his amazement she turns him down, determined to discover the whereabouts of her real parents.

Warbucks decides to assist her, with the help of his powerful friends including the President himself.........