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.
Yet, in spite of all the elegance, pace and poise, it feels safe, tame and nostalgic. Cameron Mackintosh worked with Bourne on a 1994 production of Oliver!. This time, Bourne directs too, along with Jean-Pierre van der Spuy, but there is no imprint of the former’s usual daring and dangerous interpretations of the classics. Revised by Mackintosh, it feels surprisingly – disappointingly – faithful. There is the sense of a show that is immaculately orchestrated rather than one that comes with a big enough emotional life.
Cian Eagle-Service, performing the role of Oliver on opening night, is angelic but does not quite tug at your heartstrings, even when he sings Where is Love?. The story as a whole does not carry the sting of a child abused by the adult world, and you certainly do not join the dots to child poverty today, which jars in a week when the subject has rocked the new Labour government.
But the production does acknowledge the problematic character of Fagin. Referred to as “a very shrivelled Jew” by Dickens, he was most offensively played with a prosthetic nose by Alec Guinness in 1948. Here, Fagin is played by Simon Lipkin, who is of Jewish heritage. He knowingly underlines the problematic nature of the character’s Jewishness in You’ve Got to Pick a Pocket or Two, which comes with Yiddish-style choreography and a later exclamation of “oy”. He also shows up all the artifice around the character, telling the klezmer violin to shut up.
Looking like a Pirate of the Caribbean with his earrings, open-necked shirt and medallion, he plays Fagin as a tragic clown – less the groomer of child criminals than an overgrown kid himself, but also speaking about untrustworthy politicians in a sly nod to today. His charisma defines the production and the show could better be renamed Fagin!.
The problem of Nancy (Shanay Holmes) is less resolved. A victim of domestic violence at the hands of Bill Sikes (Aaron Sidwell), she is slapped to the ground and gets back up to sing As Long As He Needs Me. Holmes is a remarkable singer but this depiction does not have the complicated, knowing elements that Lipkin’s Fagin brings. It is played straight, which seems like a missed opportunity.
Radical interpretation is not on order here, though. This is about old-school high-quality entertainment. It could be a Christmas show, or high-end panto (Sidwell is even booed as he takes his bows). For those who want it, this will not disappoint.
At Chichester Festival theatre until 7 September
