Oliver!, Lionel Bart’s adaptation of Charles Dickens’s 1838 novel, has been a stage favourite since its first appearance in 1960. It’s incredible to think that Bart was only 30 when he wrote the lyrics, music and book. Though maybe not, given the buoyant energy of the piece, and its powerful sense of the bright possibilities of life that stretch before a child, contrasted with the crushing realities that canker expectations.
With the gentlest of touches, James Brining’s exuberant production at Leeds Playhouse striates light and dark, dancing us between attracting-repelling counterpoints of good and bad. The orphan Oliver (captivating Theo Wake, on the night I was there) is innocence incarnate in the den of boy thieves run by Fagin (nimble Steve Furst). Oliver’s polar opposite is the terrifying villain Bill Sikes (blood-chillingly convincing Chris Bennett). Or is he? Is Sikes the fallen angel Oliver could have become if chance had not united him with his prosperous grandfather?
