Oliver Review

Overall Rating

We went to see Oliver! yesterday afternoon at the Drury Lane Theatre, London and were extremely disappointed by it. Oliver is one of our favourite musicals, but we have seen local amateur productions of a much higher standard than this. We felt that a lot of the vocals were weak, a couple of the characters were masking northern accents poorly (particularly Mr Bumble) - and that all in all the best actor by far was the dog!

The boy playing the Artful Dodger was quite believable in his role, but he did 'gabble' his words at times. The young boy 'Nipper' was good too but Oliver himself had no stage presence, sang out of tune in places and was disappointing.

Whilst I like Rowan Atkinson as a performer generally, I do agree with the review here which says he seemed to be trying to turn the show into a pantomime - he was most definitely Rowan Atkinson and had little credibility as Fagin, and does not have a good singing voice - after all it is a musical!!

Jodie Prenger as Nancy was one of the better performers, but her part in 'Its a Fine Life' was weak.

To finish on a positive note, the set design, construction and changes were amazing!