Oliver!, Gielgud Theatre review - Lionel Bart's 1960 masterpiece is Bourne again

Into a world of grooming gangs, human trafficking and senior prelates resigning over child abuse cases comes Oliver!, Lionel Bart’s masterly musical. Is its grim tale of workhouses, pickpockets and domestic violence an awkward fit with today’s values? 

On paper, probably yes. Here, loyal Nancy is still a victim of her brutal lover, little Oliver is not spared becoming a felon in the eyes of the law, Fagin is a gangmaster with criminal intent. But this latest West End production is soft-centred alongside the Dickens and delivers just what fans of this wonderful score will want: impeccable singing and dancing, teamed with a brilliant set, atmospheric lighting and a Poor Theatre design that makes the staging oddly intimate.

The design is key, a deliberate reversion to the aesthetic of the original by Sean Kenny, according to the man who created the current production, Lez Brotherston, in a programme note. Taking advantage of the Gielgud’s revolve, he has plotted a flowing choreography for the elements onstage, dominated by a large metal bridge and walkway, with balconies on each wing. In charge of the cast’s choreography, and the directing, is his regular collaborator, Matthew Bourne, who brings his usual genius to the proceedings.What you get is a musical whose slickness isn’t overt, a very un-West End experience that isn’t showy and never parades the size of its budget. Everything onstage is there to move scenes on from one locale to the next, from glorious song to glorious song. London streets buzz with people then move inside grim, dirty buildings, and back again. Nothing is extraneous. Supplementing the look are the exceptional lighting effects of Paule Constable and Ben Jacobs, who can seemingly conjure clouds of dank fog, aided by the atmospheric video projections of George Reeve. The musical arrangements, too, nudge the piece along, skilful orchestral transitions by Stephen Metcalfe that weave in key melodies from the score. 

Four actors take turns in the title role, Cian Eagle-Service at the performance I saw, a teeny tousle-headed boy with a big, beautiful voice. (I’m not sure he needed his mike.) Just as robustly sung is Shanay Holmes’s Nancy (pictured above, standing right), whose warm mezzo handles “As Long As He Needs Me” with just the right mix of strength and pathos. Even more of a belter is Katy Secombe’s Widow Corney (pictured below with Oscar Conlon-Morrey), whose jagged crying is both excruciating on the ear and a thing of wonder. Her other half, Beadle Bumble, is given a Gilbert and Sullivan flavour by Oscar Conlon-Morrey, whose crisp diction and rolled consonants are as amazing as her bursts of caterwauling. Every word of the lyrics is crystal-clear throughout.

What to do with Fagin in these twitchy times? He is undeniably Jewish on the page, though in Simon Lipkin has a more athletic, manly portrayer than is usual. Lipkin is a triumph, a seriously funny performer whose asides and audience exchanges are like a stand-up’s. (He even makes a standard comedy jibe about the people in the cheap seats.) If he hadn’t been with the production since its out-of-town run at Chichester Festival Theatre in the summer, his patter might be mistaken for gifted ad-libs. He mixes the naughty charm of Micky Flanagan with the soft tones of a kindly Mitteleuropean grandad.

His performance of “Reviewing the Situation” in particular (pictured below) is bravura stuff, gathering speed through a section where he does the old trick of wearing half his coat and caressing the other half of his body with the hand in the coat-sleeve, burns a hand on the stove-top till smoke rises from it and reproaches the violinist’s soupy klezmer-esque solo, whose increasingly mad pace he has to keep up with. 

Also gracing the cast are, as Bill Sikes, an excellently vile Aaron Sidwell with a Peaky Blinders ‘do, his squashed-hatted profile like something out of Boz, who opens up one of Dickens’s nastiest creations to allow glimpses of the tortured soul inside the thug; and Philip Franks as Mr Brownlow, his dulcet speaking voice a welcome foil to the Dickensian demotic of the street gang. The latter's accents are the only discordant note, just a tad too broad, as if they have learned their difficult roles phonetically.They dance like a dream, though, including the very young ones (the little tyke in an outsized hat playing Sidney at my performance was an adept). Bourne has gone to early Victorian music hall for his signature steps here, with lots of oompah capering, arm-rows, Lambeth Walk strutting and, for the gang, a characterful shoulder-drop move. He gives Billy Jenkins’s Artful Dodger a lovely routine where he crouches directly behind Oliver and they do simultaneous head-dips in opposing directions, as if signalling the Dodger’s wily nature, never where you expect him.

There may be some who still query the correctness of the content of the show, but they would be missing the immense affection with which it has been revived. This is indeed “freely adapted” from the original novel, its lead pair of criminals here surviving the police raids and avoiding imprisonment, then giving each other a huge hug and walking off, literally, into the sunset. 

• Oliver! at the Gielgud Theatre until 29 March 2026
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