Review: Oliver! at Theatre Royal Windsor (From Bucks Free Press)

Review: Oliver! at Theatre Royal Windsor

1:46pm Thursday 27th October 2011 in Freetime

Lionel Bart’s Oliver! has been a family favourite since it first came on to the theatrical circuit in 1960. Its popularity increased with the release of the 1968 film starring Jack Wild, Oliver Reed, Mark Lester and Ron Moody.

With the potential for a massive young ensemble, it is a particularly strong musical to pick when your cast is made up of children and young adults and The Theatre Academy have taken advantage of this - in their production of Oliver! they have created a full scale extravaganza.

A big cast consisting of young people aged six to twenty-six dazzle in the ensemble scenes, and sing-a-long favourites ‘I’d do Anything’ and ‘Consider Yourself’ ring out with enthusiasm and skill.

Some of the cast members train at the Heidi Rhodes School of Dancing and this shows in the musical numbers, where complicated group choreography lifts this production into the professional leagues.

One such student is Aidan Kilby, who is sharing the role of the Artful Dodger. Dodger was always going to be a show stealing part, but Kilby sings, dances and acts the cheeky cockney to perfection.

Liam Buckland played a passionate Oliver, and as he is also role sharing it will be interesting to see the contrast with the younger actor Joseph Bristow.

The adult performers all gave excellent performances, but Fagin (Daniel Page), Nancy (Ashley Oliver) and Bill Sykes (Lee Thomas) were particularly strong. Page as Fagin battled a couple of technical issues in the first half and came out swinging (and singing) in the second.

Nancy is a great opportunity for a multi-talented actress, singer and dancer to shine, and Ashley Oliver certainly does that. A collective shiver of delight ran down the audience’s spines as she reached the show-stealing crescendo of ‘As Long as He Needs Me’ and her brutal demise at the hands of the man she loved was pitiful and horrifying.

Though the Artful Dodger, Fagin and Nancy individually shone, it is difficult to pick out the highlights from such a great cast of such enthusiastic performers. The Theatre Academy runs several shows throughout the year, and if they are all like this performance I will be first in line for the next one.

Oliver! runs at Theatre Royal Windsor until Saturday 29th October