In many ways Lionel Bart’s 1960 masterpiece is the quintessential West End show – created by a Londoner, packed with memorable tunes, and based on a Dickens classic.
It was also the first major show to employ future impresario Cameron Mackintosh, who owns The Gielgud, and has done more than most to ensure the capital’s theatreland thrives.
Simon Lipkin as Fagin in Oliver! (Image: Johan Persson)
Bourne, who directs and choregraphs, doesn’t fiddle too much with a winning formula that has seen the show enjoy four lengthy West End runs.
He relishes the gothic elements, the thunderstorm raging outside The Workhouse gates, and creepy facial sores on Undertaker Mr Sowerberry’s apprentice.
And when he lets rip with an extended Consider Yourself, or Be Back Soon, Lez Brotherson’s multi-layered set complete with gantry, swing bridge and spiral staircases, rings with the stomp of urchin’s boots and clicking Cockney heels.
Bourne is terrific at building movement across the revolve on Who Will Buy, and conjures a Hogarthian tavern scene with Shanay Holmes’ joyous Nancy delivering a gutsy Oom-Pah-Pah, and earlier It’s A Fine Life.
Shanay Holmes as Nancy and Billy Jenkins as The Artful Dodger in Oliver! (Image: Johan Persson)
She’s saddled with the domestic violence victim/tart with a heart trope, though, and misses the particular connection with – on our night – Raphael Korniet’s vulnerable Oliver which makes sense of her late sacrifice.
Similarly Aaron Sidwell can’t get past one-note menace as Bill Sikes, and to contemporary eyes, it’s hard to see why Nancy loves him.
But there’s a Vaudevillian scene-stealing turn by Simon Lipkin as Fagin, played younger and more empathetic than usual, with much fourth-wall breaking clowning that strays into excess but, is at least a corrective to Dickens’ problematic characterisation.
They’ve tweaked the ending to play up the co-dependent relationship between Fagin and Billy Jenkins’ perky Artful Dodger.
You might wish this undoubtedly high-quality revival had made a few more tweaks to some of the more simplistic characterisation, but you can’t but be swept up by the timeless songs and story.
Oliver! is now booking until March 2026 at The Gielgud Theatre.