“Who will buy this wonderful morning?” isn’t a sentiment we’ve had much cause to express during this cloud-shrouded summer. But just hearing that line afresh in Lionel Bart’s uplifting near-showstopper Who Will Buy?, as our orphan hero Oliver gazes out with rapture (and rags-to-riches contentment) at a picture postcard London, is akin to getting a substitute for the real thing.
Indeed you could say that the ensuing lines (“Who will tie it up with a ribbon? And put it in a box for me…”) apply to the evergreen 1960 musical overall: for all its Dickensian gloom, it’s so fundamentally ebullient it’s like bottled joy: guaranteed to put a spring in your step.
Fans are understandably protective of Oliver! And few are more equipped to be so than Cameron Mackintosh, its longstanding producer. But even he knows nothing can be preserved in aspic.
And so the big Twist proffered in this West End-bound Chichester revival is to go for intimacy and a quality of simplicity in keeping with the “poor theatre” aesthetic that characterised Sean Kenny’s original 1960 designs and Bart’s own East End theatre roots.
That’s not to say that this reconception, with choreography and direction by Matthew Bourne (with Jean-Pierre van der Spuy), shortchanges the spectacle – it’s more to squish it. The action is played across tight levels of stage that have a crate-box roughness. The revolve generates a sense of metropolitan expanse, while the raggy curtains of Fagin’s den evoke a thrown-together existence.
Sometimes there’s a too generalised air of bustle, as when the stage erupts into a hive of cockney activity, blurring the focus. Still whether in the work-house boys’ mechanical scrubbing motions or the twitching strut and scampish swagger of Dodger’s crew, the choreography plainly has verve. And at its best, as with Oom-Pah-Pah, it delivers an infectious sense of heaving Victorian conviviality.
Some of the distractions, such as the conspicious presence of the conductor (Graham Hurman) beneath Shanay Holmes’ excellent, leather-lunged Nancy as she reprises As Long As He Needs Me (which benefits from a superb orchestral adaptation by Stephen Metcalfe), may be less of an issue once the production moves to London’s Gielgud Theatre. Likewise, Simon Lipkin’s gaudily piratical Fagin, steering away from crafty, wily stereotype but still heading into larger than life caricature (and threatening the poignancy of Reviewing the Situation with comic ad-libs), may make more sense during the panto-season.
Still, both the novelty and the niggles are immaterial besides that cavalcade of imperishable classics and the constantly moving sight of a vulnerable boy holding his own in a largely adult world (with Billy Jenkins’ treasurable, capering Dodger cutting a more teenaged figure than usual, and Aaron Sidwell more sneering than growling as Sikes but still a menacing fiend). On opening night, the wide-eyed, sweetly smiling 12-year-old Cian Eagle-Service took the lead, melting hearts from that famous first request for more gruel, past the plaintive, prayer-like solo “Where is Love?” and on to the climactic, unapologetically melodramatic, rescue. “He should have taken the final bow” someone muttered. I think so too.
Until Sept 7. Tickets: cft.org.uk. At the Gielgud Theatre, London W1 (oliverthemusical.com) from Dec 14
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