Twist in time from any vantage point
Oliver! is this year’s spectacular Christmas production at Leeds Playhouse. Yvette Huddleston got a look behind the scenes at the popular classic. Pictures by Alastair Muir and James Hardisty.
IT’S always a treat walking into a busy rehearsal room – and this one is busier than most. I’m here for a behind-thescenes preview of Leeds Playhouse’s festive production of the popular musical Oliver! and with a cast of nearly 60 performers, it is theatre-making on a monumental scale. It’s only to be expected – artistic director James Brining and his creative team have been staging this kind of big, bold show in their yuletide slot for many years, and the results are never less than spectacular.
The production is up and running now but when I join them, the company are just about to do their first run-through before moving into the Quarry Theatre for further rehearsals, pulling it all together in the performance space ahead of opening night.
The atmosphere is energetic, supportive and very focused. There are 19 adult performers and 38 children, with varying degrees of experience, and the feeling in the rehearsal is upbeat and collegiate – everyone, grown-ups and youngsters, is on the same level.
They are all working together to create the best production they possibly can for all the audiences coming to see it over the festive season.
Lionel Bart’s award-winning musical is adapted from the classic Charles Dickens novel Oliver Twist. It tells the story of young orphan Oliver, born into a life of poverty and misfortune, who sets out on a perilous journey from a desolate workhouse, escaping to the vibrant streets of London in search of love and a place to call home.
Along the way he meets kindly Nancy who takes him under her wing and he is befriended by the charming Artful Dodger who introduces him to Fagin and his gang of young pickpockets where he comes to the attention of dastardly Bill Sikes.
The musical is rightly cherished and it features some cracking, familiar songs including Food, Glorious Food, Oom Pah-Pah, I’d Do Anything, As Long as He Needs Me, Consider Yourself and the heart-rending Where is Love?
It promises to be the perfect Christmas show for all the family, and another suc