Dear friends. Having read a glowing review of the revival last year in Chichester of Lionel Bart's musical Oliver!, I rushed to book when it transferred to London.
Judging by the packed Monday performance we saw, and the fact it's booked until September, it seems a hot ticket.
I thoroughly enjoyed it, although I had sore misgivings initially because of my attachment to the 1968 film.
I was 7 when it came out and we queued around the block to see it at the Odeon in Plymouth. My friends and I were blown away by the film, and it did well in the awards too, nominated for 11 Academy awards and winning six, including Best Picture and Best Director (Sir Carol Reed).
I can't tell you how many times I've seen it. The film still looks beautiful and not at all dated, forever in its time capsule.
Charles Dickens' story is a dark one, showing the cruelty and hard times of Victorian England for the poor.
The new revival of the musical at the Gielgud Theatre largely glosses over the misery in an adaptation that pulses with exuberance and joy.
The staging is fantastic. There's a constant miasma cloaking the stage from dry ice, reminding us of the smoke and pollution of London at that time.
One minute we're in the hustle and bustle of a market, then we're in Fagin's den. In the blink of an eye we're in an upmarket square with flowers and vendors selling strawberries and roses.
Fagin, played by Simon Lipkin, 39, steals the show. He's less sinister than in some portrayals, and in lesser skilled hands might come across as a pantomime performance played for laughs. However Lipkin effortlessly switches from comedy to tragedy and is utterly convincing.
Shanay Holmes gives a spirited performance as Nancy, providing the emotional backbone of the musical as she rails against the harsh upbringing she had in Fagin's den. She tries to spare Oliver, while acknowledging her devotion to brutish criminal Bill Sikes.
Holmes was more than capable of giving full justice to Bart's emotional belter As Long As He Needs Me, and the sass and spirit of Oom Pa Pa.
The production has two flaws in my view. The first is the addition of two weaker Bart songs which are added to pad out the first half. These were not included in the 1968 film. The musical is already 2 hours 40 (including the interval) and the additional songs didn't add much.
A quite unsavoury bawdiness is created in a skit around I Shall Scream, performed by a lustful Mr Bumble and Widow Corney (played by Katy Secombe, daughter of Harry, Mr Bumble in the film). It was unnecessarily coarse and will perplex small children.
The other flaw was that the whole thing rode on Fagin and Nancy giving us light and shade, and without them, there was a lack of tension and drama. A few of the story's key moments were absent or too quick. We didn’t see Oliver's court appearance and rescue by Mr Brownlow, or the time he had to accompany Bill Sikes on a burglary.
The murder of Nancy and the pursuit of Sikes felt rushed and under played.
Sikes was "bigged up" as mean but didn't have the opportunity to develop any depth.
Overall, the strengths outweighed the weaknesses. I joined in with the rapturous applause and had a great time. The big set pieces, involving the entire cast, such as Consider Yourself and Oom Pa Pa, were sensational.
Lionel Bart would be satisfied. I'm not sure what Dickens would make of it all.
Who was Lionel Bart?
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