“Oliver!” at Gielgud Theatre
Mark Shenton in the West End
15 January 2024
“Oliver! really explains my passion for musicals,” Cameron Mackintosh has said of Lionel Bart’s forever rousing and inspiring 1960 musical. Early on in his professional life he was an assistant stage manager on a national tour of the show, in which he had a walk-on role in the chorus. Since then he has produced it several times. He revived the original staging at its first West End home the Albery Theatre (previously the New Theatre and now the Noël Coward Theatre which he owns) in 1977 and again at the Aldwych in 1983. Then he turbo-charged the signature sense of Mackintosh spectacle in an all-new production at the London Palladium in 1994, directed by Sam Mendes and choreographed by Matthew Bourne, which was subsequently revised and revived at Drury Lane in 2008, with Bourne newly joined by Rupert Goold as co-director.
Cian Eagle-Service and Jamie Birkett.
Photo credit: Johan Persson.
Now he has freshened it up yet again with a brand-new production – tried out at Chichester last summer – with Bourne entirely in charge alongside Mackintosh (the latter of whom now also takes an author’s co-credit for revising the script and providing new material). The West End transfer was announced even before it opened in Chichester, so it was conceived with its eventual destination in mind, newly designed by Bourne’s regular collaborator on his dance shows, Lez Brotherston. In a programme note, Mackintosh states, “This time Matt and I wanted to return to Lionel’s original concept for the show, thrillingly designed for a more intimate playhouse.”
The production brings a cinematic fluidity and momentum to the show which echoes Mackintosh’s nearly four-decade run of Les Misérables next door on Shaftesbury Avenue (with Les Mis briefly occupying the Gielgud during a temporary hiatus as the Queen’s Theatre was refurbished as the Sondheim). Flying bridges and dramatic floods of lighting by Paule Constable and Ben Jacobs amplify the comparisons. (It feels no accident that Boublil and Schönberg were also partly inspired by Oliver! to write Les Misérables.)
Photo credit: Johan Persson.
In the process, the show becomes distinctively and definitively part of the Mackintosh musical factory’s method and magic. Part of that, as shown here, is a constant sense of reinvention, even with something as familiar and beloved as Oliver! “Please, sir, can I have some more?”, young orphan Oliver Twist asks early on in the show – and this production dares to give us a lot more of Oliver!, reclaiming the darker hues of the Dickens tale of Victorian London from the sometimes jaunty tone of Bart’s book and music.
The familiar delights are all here, of course, its forever memorable melodies cascading from the stage like this is a jukebox musical, except they were all written for this show – and there isn’t a dud amongst them. But more than that, they also all earn their place dramatically, from Fagin’s masterclass in managing his juvenile criminal gang in “Reviewing the Situation” to Nancy’s heartfelt cry of anguish at being trapped in a dangerous relationship with “As Long as He Needs me”.
Both songs are rendered with relish and fervour by Simon Lipkin and Shanay Holmes, respectively, to make them sparkle and distress anew. With a revival like Oliver!, long shadows are cast by previous occupants of the roles, but Lipkin and Holmes bring fresh theatrical details and integrity to each moment to make it feel as if it’s new.
This is true of the entire spellbinding spectacle. There’s luxury casting across the entire thrilling ensemble, with Aaron Sidwell bringing a fierce unlikeability to Bill Sikes, Stephen Matthews as the sternly unforgiving undertaker Mr Sowerberry, and Philip Franks as kindly Mr Brownlow, who adopts Oliver.
The role of Oliver is shared by four young actors; at the performance reviewed, Cian Eagle-Service brought a bright, pitch-perfect choirboy’s treble to his stunningly mature portrayal. Also a triumph is Billy Jenkins as a knowingly precocious Artful Dodger.
The show has more than proved its mettle over the last 60 years, and far from seeming dated, now feels timeless in this stunningly beautiful production.
