Cameron Mackintosh and Matthew Bourne’s revival is now playing at the Gielgud Theatre
There’s something magnificent about Lionel Bart’s free adaption of Charles Dickens – a musical that turned a great socially-aware novel into a tune-filled musical, without sacrificing its acute comprehension of poverty and loss.
It is so full of brilliant tunes that it would be hard to stage a bad production. But this version, directed and choreographed by Matthew Bourne, co-directed by Jean-Pierre Van Der Spuy, and designed by Lez Brotherston is a very good one indeed.
Arriving at the Gielgud, it has darkened and deepened since its first outing at the Chichester Festival Theatre. Its quality lies in the way that the collaborators (including associate choreographer Etta Murfitt) make a contrast between constant movement and stillness, allowing the focus to slide from broad, bright dance scenes full of life, to powerfully arresting moments of peril and sadness.
Everything in the production seems attuned to this sense of shifting emphasis, from the haunting cruelty of ‘Who Will Buy?’ when a small, safe girl examines Oliver’s plight as a foundling for sale, to the warm exuberance of Fagin’s den, to the brutality of Bill Sikes’ treatment of the kind-hearted Nancy, and the way she constantly protects another girl in her care.
Brotherston’s set of gantries and iron stairways turns on a revolve, emphasising the bustle and vastness of the city but allowing vivid vignettes to emerge within it; Bourne’s choreography sets the boys in the orphanage scrubbing the stage in fierce unison until the moment of frozen suspense when Oliver dares to ask for more. Later, in routines such as It’s A Fine Life and Consider Yourself, their movement is both fierce (with beaten cups and feet) and childlike (as they imitate horses). Everything adds to the telling of the story in the most compressed and clearest way.
This sense of scalpel-sharpness is emphasised by extraordinary, stripped-back orchestrations by Stephen Metcalfe (beautifully played by the small-scale orchestra under Graham Hurman), and by Paule Constable and Ben Jacobs’ painterly lighting that sculpts the stage with billowing smoke. It’s both sumptuous and stark.
As such it provides the perfect backdrop for a series of deeply considered performances that never resort to cliché. Simon Lipkin’s piratical Fagin is a fabulously outlandish creation, creating complicity with the audience by his eye-rolling asides. His charisma carries the klezmer-style Reviewing the Situation, and he perfectly manages to suggest both Fagin’s ruthlessness and a genuine kindness, which makes his den a refuge in a bitter world. When he walks off with Billy Jenkins’ swaggering Artful Dodger, there is real affection between the pair, which is profoundly moving.
In the same vein Shanay Holmes makes Nancy far more than the traditional tart with a heart, finding complexity in the neediness of her relationship with Aaron Sidwell’s malevolent Sikes. It’s hard to discover a way of singing “As Long as He Needs Me”, when you have just been fiercely beaten to the floor, but Holmes performs with great feeling and intelligence, more or less bringing the house down.
Oscar Conlon-Morrey makes Bumble’s venality both comic and chilling, while Katy Secombe’s Widow Corney is a hard-hearted horror. As one of four youngsters playing Oliver, Cian Eagle-Service sings with thrilling ease; his acting is full of character. The entire production teems with life, commitment and panache. It’s a richly realised triumph.