A brand new manufacturing of Lionel Bart’s iconic musical Oliver! has been absolutely reconceived by director and choreographer Matthew Bourne and guarantees to be some of the unforgettable reveals ever on the Chichester Festival Theatre, the place it is because of play 8 July – 7 September 2024.
The orphaned Oliver escapes the tough Victorian workhouse and takes refuge in London’s murky underworld with the wily gang chief Fagin and his crew of resourceful pickpockets led by the Artful Dodger. He finds a buddy within the kind-hearted Nancy and when he’s wrongly arrested for stealing, Oliver meets an surprising saviour; however is happiness really inside his grasp?
With a sensational rating, together with Food Glorious Food, Consider Yourself, You’ve Got to Picka-Pocket or Two, I’d Do Anything, Oom Pah Pah, As Long As He Needs Me and plenty of extra, the Olivier, Tony and Oscar-winning masterpiece vividly brings to life Dickens’ ever-popular story of the boy who requested for extra.
The forged contains 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) because the Artful Dodger and Philip Franks (The Rocky Horror Show, Witness for the Prosecution) as Mr Brownlow.
Oliver! is directed and choreographed by Matthew Bourne; 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; authentic orchestrations William David Brohn; orchestral adaptation Stephen Metcalfe; casting administrators Felicity French CDG and Paul Wooller CDG; youngsters’s casting director Verity Naughton CDG.
There shall be a Dementia Friendly efficiency on 31 July; a Relaxed Performance on 22 August; and a Summer Gala on 6 September.