Oliver!

Oliver always pleases audiences with well-known tunes and familiar characters and musical societies always have plenty of scope to utilize children, which gets “bums on seats” – and consequently packed out audiences, which is always great to see.

Every single member of this cast had great characterisation and created the chapters of the familiar story as we followed young Oliver from Workhouse, to Undertakers, to Fagin’s Den and finally into the Brownlow household.

In the title role of Oliver Twist was Elliot Hale who took on this role after the dress rehearsal!  His performance was excellent – who would have known he literally had hours to prepare for this?  His diction was loud and clear, and he had a lovely singing voice.  Massive congratulations to Elliot – really well done on being an absolute trouper!

Nancy’s (Fiona Passey) rendition of 'As Long As He Needs Me', showed great passion and understanding of the number.  She had brilliant interaction with Fagin’s gang throughout the production too – and along with Bet (Harriet Banister) she demonstrated her extensive musical theatre experience leading the numbers “I’d Do Anything” and “Oom-Pah-Pah”.

All principal characters were extremely well played and there was humour from Mr Bumble (Lee Wallace) and Widow Corney (Leah Ogrizovic-Kerr). 

I particularly liked the Undertakers Parlour scene where Mr and Mrs Sowerberry (expertly played by Mark Brown and Phoenix Bass) really brought out the humour of the whole piece, and moved through the scene at such a swift pace. Noah Claypole (brilliantly played by Jay Airey) showed himself as a “bully” towards Oliver – which is a side to Noah that I’ve never seen before in any production – really well done Jay.  Watch out for this young man – he has a bright musical theatre future ahead of him with his energy and performance!

Bill Sykes (Jonny Tate) was played in such a menacing way, and his portrayal made my spine tingle during his altercation with Nancy in Act 2.  The “acting” by both Fiona & Jonny was superb throughout the whole show.

Fagin (Peter Whitley) displayed great rapport with The Artful Dodger (Harvey Dewhurst), and the rest of his “gang” throughout the excellent musical numbers “Pick a Pocket or Two” & “Be Back Soon”.  Another excellent performance from a gent with heaps of musical theatre experience!

This was a great evening’s entertainment where everyone on stage clearly put their heart and soul into the performance.  Huge congratulations to Jay Cundell-Walker on such a well-paced production which never stopped!  The segues from scene to scene were excellent – it really kept the momentum going.

Special mention must go to MD, John Sandland – who kept the score going at a great pace, with such a beautiful orchestra - and it was a joy to hear the violin playing throughout.  It was particularly “haunting” during Fagin’s “Reviewing The Situation”.

Congratulations to everyone involved – wardrobe, makeup, lighting, sound, props were all excellent and really enhanced the production.

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