Oliver! | Live Show Review – TOP 20 MUSICALS 2024: No 17

You can’t help but expect something special: choreographer supremo Matthew Bourne directing at Chichester Festival Theatre – a place that knows how to put on a musical – with a revival of one of the most crowd-pleasing pieces of all time, Lionel Bart’s Oliver!, reworked by Bourne and the show’s longtime guardian Cameron Mackintosh.

But for this production, Bourne (who choreographed previous productions) and Mackintosh don’t want the big, lavish spectacle of the 1994 and 2009 revivals. This one is about a return to the poor theatre aesthetic which inspired the original production, emerging from the politically radical Theatre Royal Stratford East under Joan Littlewood in the 1960s.

And that’s really on display in the set by Bourne’s close collaborator Lez Brotherston. Rags and scaffolds, chunks of buildings rather than the whole thing, and a permeating grey murkiness suggest something quite gritty, quite real. Maybe something leaning into the story’s themes of child poverty.

When it starts, that idea evaporates. Instead, Bourne (with help from Jean-Pierre van der Spuy) directs every scene in a way that leans into its un-realness: we get clowning, pantomime, slapstick, slow-mo running. Essentially, an Oliver! that keeps slipping into the kind of grand spectacle it’s trying to avoid, as if it can’t help it. 

The first of those moments, when the show suddenly comes completely alive, happens during ‘Consider Yourself’. It starts with a wonderfully innocent and sweet Cian Eagle-Service (who shares the title role with two other young actors across the run) being befriended by Billy Jenkins’s fantastically cheeky, charming Dodger (he’s had practice, having played the role in the BBC series Dodger). It’s just the two of them onstage, then the revolve starts whirling, the set comes in, Fagin’s urchins appear and by the end it’s a massive, thrilling demonstration of what Bourne can do, and what this production could – should – be.

We get that tantalising taste of greatness in other moments too: a soul-baring ‘As Long As He Needs Me’ by Shanay Holmes’s Nancy, and the scenes with Mr Bumble and Widow Corney. Oscar Conlon-Morrey and Katy Secombe are beyond grotesque; they’re pantomime dames almost, as they enact a slapstick-style routine about marriage. It’s very, very funny.  

At the centre is a fascinating mercurial performance from Simon Lipkin as Fagin. His costume and mannerisms borrow from Captain Jack Sparrow, but he plays Fagin as a sad clown or failed actor, ad-libbing to the audience, slipping into dozens of different voices and characters. He’s a Fagin who doesn’t have authority over the boys; though older, he’s barely more mature, a man who never grew up. Above all, he’s desperate to make us laugh.

When he sings, though, he seems to become a different Fagin, much more the old Jewish stereotype, hand twirling, accented, the odd ‘oy’ thrown in for good measure. Not only is it a bit weird, it feels out of kilter with the spoken parts of his performance which are otherwise fresh and virtuosic.

As for the rest, it’s all wonderfully slick – how could it not be, with Bourne seeming to choreograph, rather than direct, almost every action, and with interlocking revolves, a great feat of engineering to bring all the different sets on and off so effortlessly – but feels a little too uneven. It’s a clash of too many dominant personalities. You’ve got Mackintosh wanting to take it back to Bart’s poor theatre roots, and you’ve got Bourne bringing a grand balletic feel, all polish and precision, which works against that. You’ve got a set which is grim and grey, a Fagin who thinks he’s a clown, and scenes of pure panto. Too many talents, working against consistency.

Maybe it doesn’t matter too much. After all, it’s Oliver! It’s such a fun show, and when those high points hit – Nancy’s emotional devastation, the panto scenes, the glorious world- building that happens in ‘Consider Yourself’ – it really is spectacular. Yet still something persists, a little nagging feeling, that maybe we want a little bit… more?

This feature first appeared in the October 2024 issue of Musicals – consider subscribing today!

PRODUCTION CREDITS

Cast Simon Lipkin, Cian Eagle-Service, Shanay Holmes, Aaron Sidwell, Billy Jenkins, Philip Franks, Oscar Conlon-Morrey, Katy Secombe, Stephen Matthews, Jamie Birkett et al

Direction, choreography Matthew Bourne

Co-direction Jean-Pierre van der Spuy

Musical supervision Graham Hurman

New orchestrations Stephen Metcalfe

Set, costumes Lez Brotherston

Lighting Paule Constable, Ben Jacobs

Sound Adam Fisher

Projections George Reeve