Oliver!
About the Production
‘Oliver!’ is a stage musical written by Lionel Bart, and adapted from Charles Dickens’ 1838 novel ‘Oliver Twist’. The tale of a young, innocent, orphaned workhouse boy, who falls in with thieves and pickpockets before finding his fortune, it premiered at the Wimbledon Theatre in 1960 before transferring to the New Theatre in St Martin’s Lane (Now the Noel Coward Theatre), opening on the 30 June that year and running for what was then a record 2,618 performances. It was the first musical based on a Charles Dickens story that had actually been a success in any real sense.
The musical, very much simplified from the book, contains song after song that will stay with you, catchy beyond belief, from ‘Food, Glorious Food’, ‘Consider Yourself’ and ‘I’d Do Anything’ to ‘Oom-Pah-Pah!’, ‘You’ve Got To Pick A Pocket Or Two’ and ‘Reviewing the Situation’. ‘As Long As He Needs Me’ is as powerfully emotional as anything that has ever been sung on a West End stage.
Bart, real name Lionel Begleiter and descended from Galician Jews, was called a musical genius at the age of just six. He started his songwriting in amateur theatre, and was eventually talent-spotted by Joan Littlewood and joined her Theatre Workshop. His golden era was the late fifties and early sixties, when he wrote hit records for Cliff Richard, Tommy Steele and Anthony Newley, picking up numerous Ivor Novello awards. He wrote the theme to the James Bond film ‘From Russia With Love’ in 1963. But despite earlier successes, it was ‘Oliver!’ that made him a truly household name. Funnily enough, Bart couldn’t read or write music. The music for ‘Oliver’ was transcribed by a man called Eric Rogers, famous for writing the music scores for twenty one of the ‘Carry On’ movies. Bart would would hum the tunes while Rogers wrote down the notes.
In 1969 the movie of ‘Oliver!’ was released, and one might have thought life was good for the composer. However, Bart’s follow-up musicals had failed to recapture the glory of his most famous show, with ‘Twang!!’ (opening in late 1965) closing after awful reviews, mostly empty houses, and only 43 performances. It was the most expensive flop the West End had ever seen up to that point and wiped out Bart’s personal fortune. Nor could ‘Oliver!’ help him out. He had sold the past and future rights to his show to entertainer Max Bygraves in 1959 for just £350.
The Cast
Behind the Scenes
Image Gallery
The Reviews
What a jolly Fagin
The programme is adorned by Cruikshank’s illustration of Oliver’s reception by Fagin and the boys, showing the usurious old fence as an emblem of physical, moral and sartorial decay. What we are actually about to see on stage is a sanitised Fagin, smart and dapper, picking a pocket or two with all the jollity of a favourite uncle at a Christmas party. For this is the way Dickens has come home to roost in Lionel Bart’s musical.
Under the direction of Chris Argles, with Mark Taylor directing the music on piano and Simeon Dawes on guitars/synthesisers, the entertainment goes with a swing, given a degree of blandness even beyond Bart’s own intentions. For example, Lisa Boniface makes Widow Corney seem less like that repellent matron than the genial Miss Twinkleton of Edwin Drood, while Bruce Montgomery’s Fagin, for all his skill in presentation, is too lovable for comfort. However, Richard Lloyd cuts a frightening enough figure as the brutal Bill Sykes, quite turning the beer sour in the Three Cripples to earn the reputation of his fearsome name.
Oliver himself is played by Toby Keast with a wistful quality of untouchable innocence. Much sympathy, too, is generated for Tatiana Allison’s Nancy, a basically decent girl gone wrong through force of circumstance. Daniel Ireson is bright and jocular as the Dodger, and Tim Young gives a portentous account of Mr Bumble.
Chris Argles directs with a good feel for pace and atmosphere. The Street criers’ scene is particularly well staged, also Oliver’s scrap with Nathan Moughtin’s loutish Noah Claypole.
Donald Madgwick for The Croydon Advertiser
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