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A show with an exclamation mark in the title has a lot of promises to fulfill. Oliver! opens on a magnificent note. The dark, silkily lit workhouse teems with the figures of stooped orphans who crawl up through the floorboards and march around the shadows like sad doomed little robots. And Julius D’Silva’s Mr Bumble has exactly the right mixture of gravity and silliness.
Then things dip sharply. The funeral parlour scenes are marred by gosh-I’m-funny acting and the flimsy set is a sawn-off afterthought. Oliver’s big solo number ‘Where Is Love?’ comes out querulous and underpowered, possibly because somebody asked Harry Stott to do it lying on his side, propped on one arm. Not ideal if you have to fill a very large theatre and you’re only 12.
But once the kid hits London the show hits the money. The sets are wondrous. Fagin’s den is magnificently seedy and the rich, dark, lovely complexities of the city’s exteriors look like prize-winners. Eric Dibb Fuller as Dodger has the perky, vibrant charm of Tommy Steele and he launches himself at the role with irresistible energy. ‘Consider Yourself’ had the whole place sighing with raptures. The lad is ten. What a dazzler. Let’s hope further triumphs await him.
As Fagin, Rowan Atkinson has a very tough task and brings it off faultlessly. Not only must he find something different from Blackadder and Mr Bean he has to distinguish himself from Ron Moody, too. He does this while still doffing his cap in a Moodyish direction. Of course he can’t resist the temptation to add a few flourishes that belong in his one-man show but the crowd loved everything he did, best of all the improvised hand-mime work during ‘Reviewing the Situation’ (Atkinson mimes with his hands better than anyone you’ll ever see). Wisely he kept these indulgences in check and never strayed from the centre-ground of the role. A brilliantly judged performance. But can he sing or not? I didn’t notice which means he can.
Talent-show winner Jodie Prenger has the eye-catching looks and just the right buxom charisma for Nancy. Her acting is superb and though press-night nerves affected her singing these early uncertainties will soon evaporate. The first half of the show is an out-and-out triumph and it’s a pity the second act can’t quite match it. The songs aren’t as good, the plot becomes preposterous, the design of Mr Brownlow’s townhouse is a Barratt-home blandscape which disappoints after the gorgeous squalor of down-and-out London. And the death of Bill Sikes has no panache or spectacle about it. Instead of being gunned down while doing the run-up to a death-or-glory leap between two rooftops he just falls off a chimney pot. These are minor quibbles. Overall does the show earn its exclamation mark? I’d say yes but not Yes!. Ask Cameron Mackintosh, though, and you’ll get a different answer. Only a foolish producer would predict out loud how long his new show will run but there’s a note in the programme advertising for boys with unbroken voices to replace Fagin’s present gang. Clearly a lengthy stay is expected at Drury Lane. Mackintosh is probably right. If it can sell out in a slump it’ll happily pack them in during sunnier times.
And that’s when Steve Thompson wrote his new play Roaring Trade. With stupendously unlucky timing the show has opened in the aftermath of a crash and the amazing thing is that it scarcely matters. Thompson’s last show, Whipping It Up, was a cunning satire set in the corridors of power. Now he swivels his gaze to the City. Thompson’s brilliance lies in his ability to research an unfamiliar world and dramatise it in a way that doesn’t feel researched at all. A rare talent.
The plot is elaborated with great simplicity and guile and involves a pair of swindles devised by two dealing room rivals. There are excellent performances here especially from Nicolas Tennant (so much the Cockney that he even drops the aitch from his name), playing a washed-up old barrow-boy. Tennant is blessed with a gravelly voice, a warm blokeish persona and a Tim Spall-like ability to light up every show he appears in. Phoebe Waller-Bridge, a star in the making, brings a fine intelligence and a steely hauteur to the role of Jess, the firm’s resident seductress who flirts million-pound deals out of drooling investors. Despite the downturn the packed Soho theatre was full of pin-stripes chortling at the follies and excesses of their profession. Well worth blowing your redundancy money on.
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