UK Edition
Review
Grange Park Opera's Oliver!: great show, shame about the audience - review
The crowd seemed determined not to have a good time at this fabulous staging of the famous Lionel Bart musical, says Rupert Christiansen, who had an absolute ball
High jinks and skulduggery offstage at Grange Park Opera as its founder Wasfi Kani ups sticks and heads for a new base in a woodland glade in Surrey, leaving another regime to take command of this heavenly neo-classical temple set in a secluded Hampshire valley.
There’s high jinks and skuldggery on stage too, as the irrepressible Wasfi bids farewell with an ambitious programme including the intrigues of Verdi’s epic Don Carlo, the Wild West shenanigans of Puccini’s La Fanciulla del West, and this fast-moving and entertaining production of Lionel Bart’s classic musical that reminds one what a brilliantly constructed piece of work it is – not a single duff number or dull moment.
Slickly directed by Jean-Pierre van der Spuy, the show oozes Dickensian atmosphere and does the business without tricks or spin. Richard Kent’s designs move fluently from grimy workhouse to Mr Brownlow’s genteel drawing room, with lashings of London particular fog shrouding the street scenes. Lizzi Gee’s choreography generates plenty of whoopee for the dance routines, and Adam Rowe conducts the band with pizzazz – a little less amplification wouldn’t go amiss.
The cast is without weakness. Opera lovers will be heartened at Simon Keenlyside’s return to the stage after a long period of illness – keeping any pressure off his voice as Fagin, he reviewed the situation and picked a pocket or two with style, wit and crisp enunciation, as well as some nicely underplayed characterisation.
The juvenile contingent is engagingly led by Wesley-Kent Hagreaves as a resilient shrimp of an Oliver, and Charlie Barnard’s cheery Artful Dodger, cock of the walk in “Consider yourself”. Fagin’s gang, doubling as starving workhouse brats, are proper little terrors.
Jodie Jacobs makes a warmly sympathetic Nancy, tastefully avoiding vulgar X Factor belt in “As Long as he Needs me’ and gently suggesting her hopeless devotion to Simon Lipkin’s chillingly brutal Bill Sikes. Lively comic relief is provided by Grange Park veteran Jeffrey Lloyd-Roberts as Mr Bumble and Sophie-Louse Dann as Widow Corney, and Gareth Snook presents a wonderfully unctuous caricature of Mr Sowerberry the epicene undertaker.
The only dampener on the evening, aside from the dismal weather, was a rather stuffy audience that seemed snobbishly determined not to enjoy itself. Speaking for myself and given my total recall of every lyric, I had such a good time that I was sorely tempted to jump on stage at the final chorus and join in.
Until July 2. Tickets: 01962 737373; grangeparkopera.co.uk