Oliver! (tour - Norwich, Theatre Royal)

Over the past four decades, productions of Lionel Bart’s Oliver! seem to have darkened in tone. There’s still laughter and comedy, of course, but one is more conscious of the Brechtian undertones. It takes the arrival of the Artful Dodger (Max Griesbach) to shift both music and action from a minor to a major key.

By the time we come to the cries of London sequence following straight on from a deliberately squalid dockside scene, it seems almost anachronistic, as though a Morland pastoral had somehow overlaid itself into one of Doré’s most gritty engravings.

There are some strong performances in the early scenes, notably from David Langham as the most lugubrious of undertakers and C J Johnson as Mrs Sowerberry. Once Oliver, an excellent Harry Polden, reaches London, Cat Simmons has the vocal range and histrionic ability to make Nancy a strong pivot for the plot.

I wasn’t entirely sure if the round of applause which saluted Iain Fletcher’s menacing Sykes after “My name” was for a fine characterisation or for his don’t-meddle-with-me canine companion. Mr Brownlow can be a trifle colourless, but Stephen Moore gives him backbone as well as good-heartedness.

Fagin as Bart saw him isn’t quite Fagin as Dickens drew him. Though, for my money, you need menace as well as comedy. Brian Conley plays him just for comedy, self-indulgent to a degree with ad-libs a-plenty. The show-stopping numbers – “You’ve got to pick a pocket or two” and “Reviewing the situation” – work well enough, and there’s quite an amusing running joke concerning a klezmer fidl, but overall Conley unbalances what is otherwise a very good ensemble show.

Local children have been recruited, as elsewhere on this tour, to play the urchin gang members and more upper-crust juvenile members of 19th century society. Laurence Connor’s direction keeps the action moving between Tottie Driver and Adrian Vaux’s panoramic sets and, although the sound balance took a little time to settle down, Toby Higgins and the 15-person orchestra give an operatic weight to the score.

- by Anne Morley-Priestman