Red Bus Londinium Life

Please sir, can I have some more? We all know the words, but do we all really need any more Oliver?

So many of us will have been exposed to this production in school. I was an orphan in Oliver as a child, my daughter was an orphan as a child, the school I work in has Oliver on a four-year production cycle for the Year Sixes. (I once, memorably, tried to borrow a coffin from an undertaker for one of the performances). I would probably have argued that, no, Oliver had had its day and wasn’t really needed in the West End. But then, the name Matthew Bourne was added to the equation…. and the offering became much more irresistible.

Matthew Bourne’s choreographic flair is all over this show and the extraordinary set which moves in many parts and levels allows the action to have an extraordinary depth and height which utterly evokes a sense of place – a market, a pub, a den of squalor. The crowd numbers, especially Consider Yourself, are truly majestic with each character unique but also working as a wider whole – truly tingle down the spine stuff.

I was also delighted with how well the children were planned for and directed. Some recent productions, such as The King and I, have not used the children to full effect which can drag the interest level of scenes down. Certainly not the case here! All the children gave stunning performances and were charming even till the final curtain call. Cian Eagle Service was a talented and accomplished Oliver and I am sure we will see more of him.

Oliver is tough subject matter and Simon Lipkin as Fagin captured this complexity well. While Fagin’s evilness may be more clear-cut in the original book, in writing Oliver, Lionel Bart has created a more multi-layered Fagin. Yes, he is a thief who grooms young boys for crime. But he also feeds them and houses them. And in Dickens’ London, there were not many other choices.

The choice to end with Fagin and the Artful Dodger (the excellent Billy Jenkins) leaving together was an additional reminder to the audience that there was some real affection here.

Nancy’s fear and foreshadowing of her death is another indication of how trapped those in poverty were. Shanay Holmes has a stunning and powerful voice and evoked a Nancy who knew she was doomed but would do her best with what she had while she had it. It is a credit to her that in a theatre where undoubtedly most knew the play by heart, there was still much shock and many wet eyes when she was murdered.

My one disappointment was Bill Sykes (played here by Aaron Sidwell). I did not feel the arrangement of his song, My Name, gave the same sense of brooding menace as, for example, Burn Gorman in the 2009 London version.

Jonathan Bailey (Bridgerton, Wicked) credits a West End trip to see Oliver with inspiring his desire to becoming an actor. This exciting production will no doubt inspire many others.