Oliver Reviews

Oliver! the musical has opened at last in London, the critics’ reviews are in and it seems like a good moment for Reviewing the Situation.

The Daily Mail’s Review

Quentin Letts seems to have really enjoyed Oliver! He lavishes praise on almost all the major performers.

Drury Lane has known more tuneful musical stars in its long history, but the grand old temple of dreams can seldom have played host to one with such a God-given gift for comedy.

Rowan Atkinson, playing that warped scoutmaster Fagin, was the eyebrow-wriggling, funnywalking, laugh-wringing supremo on Wednesday night when Lionel Bart’s wonderful musical opened at the Theatre Royal

He also enjoyed Jodie Prenger’s Nancy saying she:

stands up to the test like a sturdy galleon…… She swings her big hips and heaves her all into the role

I’m sure he means well but poor Jodie! Ouch!

He enjoyed Harry Stott’s performance as Oliver and Ross McCormac’s Artful Doger is also picked out :

This child seems to have been born to dance and skip and wink and swagger at an audience.

His final verdict:

Anyone who needs cheering up – and after recent jobs news, heaven knows, that probably means most of us – should get along to Drury Lane sharpish and catch this humdinger of a night.

Verdict: More please, Sir Cameron

I think he liked it!

The Times Oliver Review

Benedict Nightingale is very positive as well. He describes Rowan Atikinson’s Fagin as:

not an old Bean but an infinitely creepy criminal with lank hair, a yellow face and a sinister, silvery glint in his eyes.

He wasn’t so sure about Jodie at first but she convinced him in the end:

Initially she struck me as parading, posturing, performing rather than acting, but she went on to prove herself a tough, coarse, credible presence with a big, robust voice — and that’s all that is needed.

He picks out Burn Gorman’s Sikes as:

a particular success, a pale, quiet figure who threatens more with his stillness than with his cudgel.

He also makes particular mention of “Anthony Ward’s splendidly atmospheric sets”

The Guardian Oliver Review

Michael Billington describes Rowan Atkinson’s Fagin as “a saturnine comic presence” saying:

Rowan Atkinson turns in a sprightly, distinctive performance…….Atkinson’s Fagin may be essentially comic but he endows the character with a camply sinister edge.

He seems to have enjoyed Jodie Prenger’s performance and in particular her interpretation of Nancy’s big numbers As long As He Needs Me and Oom-Pa-Pa

Mr. Billington’s main issue seem to be with Bart’s interpretation of Dickens and the very musical itself. Dickens’ book Oliver Twist gives a grim view of Victorian London which Oliver! tends to glide over. He says:

too many of the characters are ciphers, and the plot is largely a device for getting the numbers on

That is something that could be said of many musicals, I’m afraid.

Oliver Reviews: The Independent

Michael Coveny reviewing Oliver for The Independent has fewer qualms about Bart’s musical but is less convinced by Jodie Prenger.

The moment Prenger appears, I’m afraid, the heart sinks. She seems to be hiding from the audience. Her voice is okay, but she can’t act and she doesn’t have the depth of lung power to fill a plastic bag, let alone a West End theatre on a nightly basis.

“As Long As He Needs Me,” one of the great theatre songs of our time, is a total embarrassment compounded by a naff downstage centre rush for applause.

Ouch!

He’s a little bit kinder to Rowan Atkinson but not much:

Long-haired and slithery like a Semitic toad, he weighs his options with a Mr Bean-style blubberiness, tugging at his lower lip and casting malignant glances to the wings. He’s funniest when fingering his stolen gems, or kicking his legs above his head in a sideways exit. But he’s not a malevolent, gleeful, stage-hogging, dubiously paedophiliac monster that you long for and Lionel Bart wrote, even if Charles Dickens didn’t.

There seems to have only been one lead performance that he really enjoyed:

….the Artful Dodger was played by Ross McCormack, and he was terrific. The absolute centre of the show is “Consider Yourself” in Clerkenwell, as the Dodger’s gang materialise from inside a statue of a top-hatted worthy and the whole city erupts in a series of knees-ups and key changes, beautifully lit by Paule Constable.

Your Opinions

So what do you think? Have you seen Oliver! yet? Are the critics’ Oliver reviews right or are you baffled by them?

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