Oliver!

Last night the Offprogs and myself went to the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane to see Oliver!
We were in the cheap seats at the top (the 'Gods'), where you are almost sitting flat against the wall and you feel that if you lean forward you will topple into the stalls, but once I'd got over that, I realised that it was quite a good place to be because the choreography looks really great from up there and the actors let you know they are aware that there's a whole theatre there and not just the people who have paid a hundred quid for their seat at the front stalls downstairs.
Last time I saw Oliver! (fave musical- what songs!!!) I enjoyed it but it was a bit of a 'going through the motions' sort of a performance.
This production was superb- it had a really fresh and bouncy feel to it and the whole show, in spite of having cast it's main character Oliver and Nancy from a BBC programme and having Gryff Rhys Jones as it's Fagin, really seemed to be there to showcase the way the songs told the story.
The Offsprogs noticed that you didn't get to know Oliver's character at all: he was there as a foil, an 'everyboy'. They also liked the fact that the children weren't 'stage-schoolish'. The guy playing Oliver had the perfect voice for the part: not too sweet, not too harsh, and able to reach all of the notes in the songs clearly and with good unfussy diction.
The Nancy, too, was really good. She had great stage presence and actually acted, so when the mean Bill Sykes (very scary) beat her up, you really felt for her, and you really wanted to beg her not to be so deluded about him.
Gryff Rhys Jones was fine as Fagin. You could almost smell him. He's not a singer unfortunately, although he made a valiant attempt to do justice to the songs. A deeper and more mournful voice would have suited Lionel Bart's melodies better, and we did think it would have been nice to have seen Omid Djilali in the part. But he managed to transmit the sinister dealings of the manipulative fence very well, and at times made you wonder if the character was a paedophile. The fact that he didn't act like the star of the show was a tribute to his professionalism.
The shallowness (thst's the wrong word, because it didn't matter) of the characterisation meant that when they had to swap Artful Dodgers in the interval, it didn't matter that much.

This was a fabulous production, vibrant, jolly, and affecting at the same time. Hats off to the orchestra, for not being smooth and syrupy, but for feeling the emotion in the songs and knowing when to be rough when needed (that's you, fiddle player).
Offsprog One felt a bit let down by the arrangement of Who Will Buy, and said she wished she could have heard more of the full song. But the song that blew me away was Where Is Love.
I actually tried to think my way into Lionel Bart's head. How on earth did he manage to create such a divine melody that explores all the notes on the scale from every emotional perspective?
You know, a piano has black notes and white notes, all organised in a neat and tidy line, and that guy picked out combinations of chords from that stern-looking piece of clumsy technology that make you want to weep with their fluidity and beauty.
What a genius!
I am going to get hold of a piano score and leave it lying next to the piano in the hope that Offsprog Two learns to play it. Yann Tiersen's Amelie score is wearing a little thin and I should like 2010 to be the year of Lionel Bart.
What better recommendation that we decided to try to go to the theatre once a month from now on?
It is expensive, but what do you call ladies who sit in the Gods?
You call them Goddesses, that's what, and I am more than happy to start 2010 defined that way!