Cameron Mackintosh and Chichester Festival Theatre’s new production of Lionel Bart’s timeless Oliver! will follow its summer debut in Chichester by transferring to the West End at the end of the year.
Fully re-conceived for the CFT by Mackintosh and director and choreographer Matthew Bourne, the production which will debut at the Chichester Festival Theatre from 8 July until 7 September will begin performances at the Gielgud Theatre on 14 December.
As previously announced, the production will star Simon Lipkin (Guys and Dolls, Avenue Q) as Fagin, Shanay Holmes (Miss Saigon, The Bodyguard) as Nancy, Aaron Sidwell (Henry VI, Wicked) as Bill Sikes, Billy Jenkins (Les Misérables, BBC’s Dodger) as the Artful Dodger and Philip Franks (The Rocky Horror Show, Witness for the Prosecution) as Mr Brownlow.
Commenting on his love for Bart’s enduringly popular re-imagining of Charles Dickens’ classic Oliver Twist, Mackintosh said: “Oliver! has been part of my life as actor, stage manager and producer since I first saw it as a schoolboy in 1960, shortly after it opened and began to take the world by storm on stage and screen. The original production design was revolutionary and changed musical theatre and my career forever.
“Matthew Bourne and I, alongside Sam Mendes, first reinvented Lionel Bart’s masterpiece in 1994 with a huge production at the London Palladium which we restaged in an even grander way in 2009 at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane. Now 15 years later, having staged the largest production of Oliver! ever, we want to return to the scale of the brilliant original with a more intimate production, thrillingly designed by Lez Brotherston, which in a sweepingly imaginative way conjures up Dickensian London.
“Lionel’s irresistible adaptation of Dickens’ classic story, with its legendary score packed with ‘tunes glorious tunes’ will, we hope, have audiences ‘considering themselves our mate’ when we open at London’s Gielgud Theatre this December with a terrific cast, following a summer season at the Chichester Festival Theatre.”
Bourne added: “In 1994, I first worked, as a choreographer, with Cameron Mackintosh on Lionel Bart’s legendary musical Oliver! – the spectacular Palladium revival, directed by Sam Mendes – it launched a collaboration and friendship that has become one of the most important of my career. Nearly 30 years on I’m delighted that Cameron has invited me to direct my first musical and my lifelong relationship with Oliver! continues!
“Along with my regular collaborators Lez Brotherston and Paule Constable, we are taking it back to its roots, inspired by the groundbreaking “poor theatre” designs of Sean Kenny – who revolutionised the modern musical along with Lionel and his Joan Littlewood Theatre Workshop influences. As an East End Londoner myself I’ve always felt a great affinity with this show – sang all the songs in amateur shows as a kid with my brother and was a regular at Theatre Royal Stratford East as a teenager, even seeing Joan and Lionel in the bar there on several occasions.
“I was lucky enough to work closely with Lionel on the 1994 revival which was an absolute thrill (though in a recently unearthed TV interview when asked about the production he tells the interviewer ‘Some days I wanted to fire the lot of em’!!). But I loved him a lot (and I think he liked me!) and hope to do him and Oliver! proud in 2024.”
Directed and choreographed by Bourne, the production’s high-powered creative team also includes co-director Jean-Pierre van der Spuy, designer Lez Brotherston, musical supervisor and conductor Graham Hurman, lighting designers Paule Constable and Ben Jacobs, sound designer Adam Fisher, video designer George Reeve, original orchestrations William David Brohn, orchestral adaptation Stephen Metcalfe; casting directors Felicity French and Paul Wooller and children’s casting director Verity Naughton.
Angela Thomas
SHARE THIS POST:
Comments are closed.