Review: OLIVER! at the Gielgud Theatre

A musical adaptation of the novel by Charles Dickens, Oliver! tells the story of young orphan Oliver Twist, who escapes the clutches of a grim workhouse and finds himself in the seedy underbelly of Victorian London, falling in with the duplicitous Fagin and his gang of pickpockets. All Oliver wants is to find a home, but everyone he encounters seems to have their own agenda for him.

Lev Brotherston’s set design is dynamic, with a stage that unfolds and opens up to create an impression of vastness, making it feel like we’re peering into a snowy, sooty, gaslamp-lit Victorian London, complete with the city skyline projected over the backdrop. The stage is constantly, in motion, with revolving platforms as characters run across distances, markets popping up, and moving bridges during the thrill chase scene at the climax. The set is also dazzlingly, lovingly intricate and detailed, giving you something to look at in every corner during each scene.

This dynamism makes the ensemble numbers and crowd scenes delightfully engaging. The cast, especially the younger actors, bring a contagious kind of energy and physicality to these scenes, with Aaron MacGregor as the Artful Dodger stealing the spotlight with his bounding and dancing. In contrast, the young actor playing Oliver feels a little flatter and less attention-grabbing, which is perhaps fitting for a character rendered mostly passive by the events of the plot, inevitably overshadowed by the more eccentric, larger-than-life characters around him.

Fagin is an obvious stand-out in this regard - and an audience favourite, judging by the applause during the bows. Simon Lapkin is easily the funniest and most charming in the cast, with a Jack Sparrow-esque manic energy, constantly breaking the fourth wall to poke fun at the audience or pick a fight with a violinist in the orchestra. Oscar Conlon-Morrey is a close second as Mr Bumble in terms of sheer comedic timing, and his performance of ‘I Shall Scream’ with Widow Corney (Katy Secombe) is a real crowd-pleaser. Meanwhile, Aaron Sidwell as Bill Sikes is appropriately menacing and Ava Brennan as Nancy is fierce and tragic, and the two have undeniable chemistry, but both are significantly less memorable, and ‘As Long as He Needs Me’ is less of a tear-jerker than you would hope for.

Where the musical really shines is its comedy and its songs. It seamlessly blends family-friendly whimsy and slapstick with sly adult humour, and an overall tone of outlandish, over-the-top spectacle that feels very high camp. The songs are packed with nostalgia value for those of us who grew up with the musical, and you could see audience members bobbing their heads along whenever a familiar favourite like ‘Consider Yourself’ or ‘Food Glorious Food’ came on. Personally, I have a soft spot for the snappy, fast-paced (and often slightly villainous) numbers like ‘You’ve Got to Pick a Pocket or Two’ or ‘That’s Your Funeral’.

With so many characters and big musical numbers, the show has a slightly frenzied pacing, rushing from one plot point to the next and wrapping up the ending hastily so it can move on to the triumphant finish. That means it sacrifices some of the story’s emotional beats, not to mention the character depth and social nuances of Dickens’s novel. But we can forgive that, because Oliver! is just so utterly, charmingly entertaining.

Oliver! Tickets