Oliver! – Leeds Playhouse
Over the last few years Leeds Playhouse have offered all sorts of challenging festive spectaculars but this deliciously dark revival of Lionel Bart’s masterpiece Oliver! is the best yet.
You need some nerve to take on such a beloved musical, and Oscar laden movie, so the Playhouse’s Artistic Director James Brining has cleverly placed his version in the round. Colin Richmond’s design leaves the cavernous Quarry space full of raised spaces and walkways, becoming the sort of dank and dark Victorian London that Charles Dickens painted teeming with all human life and plenty of menace.
Brining is a great director of children, and when a well drilled junior ensemble sings and dances through a lively Food Glorious Food it’s clear a big and diverse cast have used their time in the rehearsal ...