Oliver! will have a new Fagin from Dec 14th 2009.

Griff Rhys Jones will take over from Omid Djalili and is committed to play the role until at least June 2010. Griff will join Jodie Prenger who is also contracted till at least March 2010. Steve Hartley replaces Burn Gorman as ‘Bill Sikes’, a role he played in the 1990’s production.
Oliver! seems to have really established itself as a firm favourite for theatre breaks and Griff’s Fagin promises an extra treat for anyone who fancies a Christmas theatre break to see Oliver!

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The New Oliver! – Could it be you?

The original Oliver!’s from the current production Laurence Jeffcoate, Gwion Jones and Harry Stott were chosen last year as part of I’d Do Anything. Now some other lucky boys will get the chance to follow them onto the West End stage.

It’s not just Oliver – the show is also looking for a potential Artful Dodger and other members of Fagin’s gang, so girls are in with a chance too.

Who are they looking for?

Actors should be aged eight to 13, under five foot tall, with unbroken voices and strong singing, dancing and acting skills.

Auditions

Initial auditions will be held on 10 August, and children should be available to appear in the show from October 2009 to April 2010.

For more information about the auditions please contact Jo Hawes at jo.hawes@virgin.net

Click here to view the embedded video.

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Omid Djalili takes over as Fagin at tomorrow night’s (July 20th 2009) performance of Oliver! There’s a super interview with him in The Sunday Independent.
In it we learn that Omid is not Muslim, as many people assume, but a member of the Bah’ai faith. He talks about playing a Jewish character and says:

“I think that if you’re playing a Jewish character, and if you can find the truth of something in that character, then that’s OK,”

It sounds like his Fagin will be quite different to Rowan Atkinson’s interpretation. The interviewer says:

it is a genuine shock when Fagin himself walks into the dressing-room. As Lionel Bart’s musical take on Dickens’s most ‘orrible villain, he is sullen, scowling and deeply scary. “I’m so pleased you like the look!” he says as I recoil from his handshake and the make-up lady begins to wipe away the bruised circles under his eyes. I wouldn’t say I “like” it: the look is chilling. It will frighten children.

I think this bodes very well for the production. Fagin should slightly give you the chills, he’s not a cosy character and he should make us uneasy.

So if you go to Oliver! and see Omid Djalili please leave us a comment and tell us what you think of the new Fagin.

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Well it’s Saturday night and West End Live is half way through. There were some great shows on today in Leicester Square all to promote the West End and provide some free entertainment for the London crowd at the same time. Highlights sp far have been a good three song set from a big cast from We Will Rock You , always a high energy show, the lovely duet from The King And I and this performance from Jodie Prenger as Nancy from Oliver! who sang as if she thought she needed to win I’d do Anything all over again!

Click here to view the embedded video.

If you keep an eye on the Theatre Breaks youtube stream you’ll catch a glimpse of Patina Miller and sisters from Sister Act and also Jerry Springer in Chicago!

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Oliver! will have a new Fagin a little sooner than expected.

Russ Abbots as Fagin

Russ Abbot will take over as Fagin from April 13. Rowan Atkinson has been forced to pull out for three weeks to undergo surgery for a hernia.

He’s hoped to be back on stage by April 27.

A statement from a spokesperson for the show said:

“Rowan has been nursing the problem for a few weeks but it flared up badly whilst on a break with his family this week. He has cut short his holiday to fly back to have surgery immediately to speed the recovery process…..The condition, whilst neither serious nor dangerous, is extremely painful and prevents normal movement, making performing impossible.”

Russ Abbot played the role of Fagin in the 1997 production and also in a couple of touring productions.

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Oliver! is now booking through to February 2010 to meet the increasing demand for tickets.

News that Omid Djalili will taking over the role of Fagin from Rowan Atkinson in July has not made any difference to booking levels. For many people the easiest way to get tickets for the dates you want will be to book them as part of an Oliver theatre break.

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Burn Gorman

Oliver has several ’stars’ but Burn Gorman (Bill Sikes) is one who everyone seems to want to know more about.

5 things you might not know about him:

1. Burn Gorman was born in 1974 in Hollywood (USA) where his father was a visiting academic. He moved to the UK when he was 7.
2. He doesn’t think much of his singing voice and is glad that his main song can be mostly acted out.
3. He plays Hinley Earncliffe, another nasty piece of work, in a new TV adapation of Wuthering Heights this spring on ITV.
4. His on-stage dog Bullseye is a replacement. The original kept biting him and other cast members. The new one has bad breath!
5. He is quite sympathetic to his character and thinks that Bill Sikes probably started off a bit like The Artful Doger and experienced some really terrible trauma that damaged him so much that he can kill without flinching.

What have I missed? What’s your favourite fact about Burn Gorman and Oliver!

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Iranian comedian Omid Djalili will replace Rowan Atkinson in the role of Fagin in Oliver! from July 20th
Mackintosh said in the Stage today

“Oliver! has been a success beyond my wildest dreams and I’m thrilled that Rowan Atkinson has had such a tremendous triumph in a role I always thought he was born to play. The only way to follow such a unique performance is with a talent just as unique, yet entirely different. No one could fulfil this criteria better than Omid Djalili.

“Omid started his career as an actor but was soon to become a major television star and one of the funniest comic actors and writers in Britain, who regularly plays unforgettable cameos in movies. It is his ability to inhabit his characters with such comic energy and wily cunning that will make his Fagin his own. Undoubtedly the first Iranian ever to portray Dicken’s legendary Jewish creation, we all look forward to him becoming part of the family in July.”

This should be interesting! I think he’s a good comic actor but I didn’t know he could sing.

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Rowan Atkinson has recently had to miss two performances of Oliver the musical in which he plays Fagin, due to a strained voice, but he has fully recovered and is now back at work.

Rowan Atkinson has performed in the musical since mid-December alongside Jodie Prenger as Nancy and Gwion Jones, Harry Stott and Laurence Jeffcoate as alternate Olivers.

Oliver the musical is set to run and run but Rowan Atkinson will continue in the role of Fagin until 18 July 2009 with one short holiday from 26th March to 5 April. Tickets for shows in March and April are running out fast but there are still good dates available for theatre breaks to see Oliver

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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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