Oliver! at the Gielgud Theatre review: This darker take on the classic musical is all killer no filler

Four boys share the role of Oliver! in this five-star staging - (Johan Persson)

Consider yourself consummately entertained if you get a ticket for this exceptional revival of Lionel Bart’s show. Distilled from Dickens and filtered through a mid-20th century sense of the capital’s shifting social tides and undercurrents, it’s the quintessential London musical.

The score of Oliver! is all killer, no filler, from Food Glorious Food to Consider Yourself to I’d Do Anything. It’s boggling to think that the witty book, wildly diverse music and earworm lyrics all came from Bart, the son of working-class Galician Jewish refugees, still in his twenties when he wrote it.