Oliver! - Review

Curve Theatre, Leicester


****


Music, lyrics and book by Lionel Bart

Directed by Paul Kerryson

The Company

The Christmas decorations may be taken down - but at Leicester's Curve the seasonal family show has another two weeks to run and judging by Friday’s packed, cheering audience it is continuing to bring much festive joy to the city.

Oliver! has always been best suited to a large stage and the Curve's main house proves ideal. Matt Kinley's impressive designs: grim ironmongery for the workhouse; beaten up timbers for Fagin's kitchen including a brilliantly silhouetted St Pauls Cathedral; and chocolate box Georgian for Brownlow's Bloomsbury are ingenious and expansive - though a minor niggle, the portrait of Brownlow’s beloved Agnes isn’t visible to those seated stage left.

Paul Kerryson places this glimpse of Victoriana in a warts and all context, pulling no punches with the tale's underlying sex and violence. It has been a while since the genius of Bart's craft in both lyric and score has been so carefully exposed.

In the title role Albert Hart capture's Oliver's wise naïveté. His presence commands the audience (he is almost angelic in Who Will Buy) and if he wisely avoids singing some of the role's highest notes, it's no big deal. Hart rises above the audience's "aahs" and alongside Joel Fossard-Jones' Artful Dodger, the pair achieve a delightfully cheese-less cheekiness.

Aside from the leading parts, it's the detail of the minor characters that work so well in this take on one of the most English musicals in the canon. We get an early glimpse of the show’s passionate darkness with Jenna Boyd and James Gant (Widow Corney and Beadle Bumble respectively) bringing a neatly worked hint of Carry On humour (another most English genre in itself) to their capers.

Likewise Jez Unwin's ghoulish Sowerberry and Natalie Moore-Williams as his ghastly wife. Inspired direction sees a macabre It's Your Funeral partly played out with the two borne aloft, corpse-like as they sing.

The show's splendour opens up in London of course, where Peter Polycarpou's Fagin (clad in an inspired takis-designed robe) is another musical theatre treat. If his semitic caricature was perhaps a tad too stereotypical, in all other respects the actor’s portrayal of this most complex of villains is as beautifully performed as it is cleverly layered. Reviewing The Situation proving Polycarpou as one of the masters of his craft.

There's more delicious detail in Lucy Thomas' Bet - Nancy's friend - who again brings a shading to this modest role that's rarely seen. Likewise John Griffiths as the principled and patrician Brownlow works well.

Bill Sikes is a cracking turn from Oliver Boot. There's all the traditional scary menace associated with this misogynist thug, yet Boot also cleverly works in a vulnerability. His Sikes struggles with both his love for Nancy and his uncontrollable and ultimately murderous abuse of her.

And then there's Nancy…

Bravely stepping in to the role for the run's final three weeks, Laura Pitt-Pulford again shows her professional devotion to director Kerryson, as long has he needs her. Earning a UK Theatre Awards nomination this time last year for her marvellous Maria (and who knows, if she hadn't have been up against Imelda Staunton's unstoppable Rose, she might well have scooped the gong) one can only hope that the award's assessors are calling in at the Curve to catch Pitt-Pulford’s takeover. I'd go anywhere to see this actress and with good reason. Her powerful As Long As He Needs Me is magnificent, reducing many in the house to tears, whilst the loving sensitivity showed towards Oliver (and which Pitt-Pulford portrayed so well towards the Von-Trapp brats a year ago) displays the skill of a performer who not only exudes excellence, but inspires a respect and affection from her fellow company members that is rarely seen in such sincerity.

It is only on re-listening to Bart's score that his melodic genius truly filters through - and under Jo Cichonska's baton the 11 piece orchestra offer an excellent interpretation. A mention to Guy Button, Steve Cooper and Sophie Gledhill whose strings work skilfully brings out the haunting klezmer riffs that underlie Fagin's performance. Choreographer Andrew Wright goes to town with the show's big numbers. We first see Wright's grand visions kick-off in Consider Yourself and he goes on to bring moments of ingenious wit to I'd Do Anything and of course the carnival of street-vendor splendour that is Who Will Buy.

Paul Kerryson gives a classy treatment to a classic show. With only two more weeks left, you should buy these wonderful tickets!

Runs until 23rd January

Photo credit: Pamela Raith

Our House

Stratford Circus, London


****

Music & lyrics by Madness

Book by Tim Firth

Directed by Sarah Redmond

Our House, the juke box musical based upon the Madness catalogue is given a sparkling re-visit by the second year Musical Theatre students of Trinity Laban. Set in and around London's Camden Town, the story follows Joe Casey a likeable cheeky chancer of a lad, who is caught breaking into a house with his girlfriend. As the police arrive, Joe's character splits into two: spiv Joe who chances it and runs away, contrasted with honest Joe who is arrested, serves a stretch in a Young Offenders institution and who then battles against disapproval and stigma as he tries to do "the right things" in his lfe. It's a classic morality tale of wrong versus right set against a backdrop of strong north London family values, lifelong friendships and corrupt multi-million pound property deals.

Sion Warner effortlessly masters both the humble and the arrogant personae of Joe in a quality performance enhanced with split second costume changes that wow with technically timed perfection. Warner has a hint of Madness' lead singer Suggs in his portrayal and his singing of the two classics I Go Driving In My Car and It Must Be Love are neat tributes to both numbers.

Joe may be the lead character but it is the company around him that create his world and the lively London that Redmond sculpts from her cast is impressive. Lewis Asquith as the spirit of Joe's dead father, accompanying him on stage through much of the show, is a masterfully understated performance of a fallible but big hearted man who despite his blunders, always loved his family. Cathy Thomas who plays his widow is heartrendingly believable as she plays a 40-something mum twice the actress' age. As Sarah, Joe's love, Lucy Thomas is a perfectly voiced and well acted foil to both versions of our (anti) hero and Thomas rises well to the challenge of having to play Sarah from two different perspectives. The tightly observed comedy comes from a quartet of friends whose timing and delivery is a treat of wit and smutty innuendo. Nazerene Williams, who performs an eye-watering splits and Amy Depledge are the giggling girls, whilst Joe's half-brothers, played by Alex Gilchrist and David Grant are a cracking pair of comically awkward adolescents. The bad guys of the piece are smoothly crafted turns from Tom Self as Reecey, who grows up from school bully to hired thug (via a sharp cameo as a Las Vegas Elvis impersonator) and Mark Gollop as ruthless developer Pressman, a pantomime villain for our time.

The choreography is inspired work from Robert Foley. The ensemble numbers of Baggy Trousers, Embarrassment (with a brilliant boxing-ring interpretation from Redmond) and The Sun And The Rain are moving and exhilarating in their audacity, with credit too to Dance Captain Anna Britton and her lead of the troupe in executing Foley's visions. A nod also to the Finale, which is a feast of fancy footwork brilliantly executed by the entire company.

Chris Whitehead's band, drawn mainly from 1st and 2nd year music students provides an accomplished accompaniment. At its core, wind player Victoria Bell's saxophone work provides the most ballsy authentic Madness sound that truly takes an already wonderful show, one step beyond.

Sarah Redmond crafts a cracking musical. Her stage is bare, save for a handful of boxes and some bunting, with video projection setting scenic suggestions. Her mission is clear: this vision of London will be created entirely by performance and it's a mission that succeeds. The production reflects a very talented bunch of students that have been led by an inspirational creative team. This show deserves a wider audience and Trinity Laban's next production is eagerly awaited.


Runs from Jun 6 - 8