There are some musicals that really do earn the overstretched moniker of “timeless”. This is one of them, not only for Charles Dickens’s resonant story of child poverty but also because every last one of Lionel Bart’s songs is exquisite.
This production, freely adapted from Dickens, does that divine score justice. The singing is pitch-perfect, with songs like Consider Yourself, I’d Do Anything and Who Will Buy? leaving you floating on air. The performances are polished with cute choreography by Matthew Bourne while Lez Brotherston’s set is gorgeous, its black-and-white Victorian-era projections classy.
