Oom Pah Pah!!

For what could well be the last theatre outing of the year, I managed to catch Leicester Curve's Christmas production of Lionel Bart's Oliver! with my fiancé. This is a show that we both know and love, but had never seen it on stage (somehow), and it was also the first production at the Curve for the both of us - and seeing as this could well be the last show of the year for me, I really wanted 2015 to go out with a bang.
And, though it was a little bit of a slow start, I think it did (more on that later).

Written by Lionel Bart (who amazingly could neither read or write music!), Oliver! premièred in London in 1960 and famously ended with over 20 encores!!! It blew the West End away, and was the first British hit for a long time to transfer to Broadway, in 1962. After composers such as Rodgers and Hammerstein dominated New York in the 1940s and 50s, Britain finally had a comeback hit! Since then it has been revived many times in the West End, and once more on Broadway starring original Fagin Ron Moody, and Patti LuPone as Nancy (though that run only lasted for 17 performances). Most famously of all, it was adapted into a feature film in 1968 and won 5 Oscars, including Best Picture!

Like I said, in this particular production, there was a little bit of a slow start; but as soon as Oliver (played with much gusto by Albert Hart) arrived in London, that was when the story really started to pick up! Mainly due to us meeting the very colourful characters everyone knows and loves, including The Artful Dodger (Kwame Kandekone), Fagin (Peter Polycarpou) and Nancy (Cat Simmons).

Fagin is defiintely the most complex character in the story, and I thought that Peter Polycarpou had a very good go at it, particularly in the second half. He went for the more gentle and funny side to Fagin, the perfect example being him goign through his collection of jewels as the boys were sleeping. However, I thought he could have been a bit more pathetic and threatening, there was a touch of menace missing for me.
As for Oliver Boot's Bill Sikes, any more menace would have been an overload. He was incredibly frightening in the way he portrayed Bill; you could imagine him quietly brooding in the corner, but one second later if he didn't like anything SNAP! You could really get the sense of him being the abusive partner he is to Nancy.

Now Nancy is a part which I would LOVE to play one day, and that was what I told my fiancé during the applause for It's A Fine Life, as Cat Simmons reminded me what a wonderful part it is! I could see now why Cameron Mackintosh asked her to cover for the UK tour while Samantha Barks was filming Les Mis. She was so strong and incredibly heart-warming, and had a wonderful unique tone in her voice. From big and brash in Oom Pah Pah to devoted and scared stiff in As Long As He Needs Me. If anything, the only thing that might have been missing is a little bit more conflicted devotion to Bill - but that's only small to me in my eyes.

The final thing I have to mention is the set design. My fiancé's words during the first scene change was "That's cool!" and I am inclined to agree with him. It almost felt like a dolls house for certain scenes, but other than that, I have no intention of going any further. It is something that you need to see when you see the production yourself. It is definitely worth a ticket, and if this is the standard at the Curve, I would definitely like to see more there in the future.