Lauren Crisp is a book editor, writer and keen follower of arts and culture. Born and raised in Harrogate, Lauren recently moved back to North Yorkshire after a stint in London, where she regularly reviewed theatre – everything from big West End shows to small fringe productions. She is now eager to explore the culture on offer in and around her home town. You can contact Lauren on laurencrispwriter@gmail.com.
Leeds Playhouse’s festive season kicks off with family favourite Oliver!, and it’s a real Christmas treat.
Set and Costume Designer Colin Richmond creates a Dickensian masterpiece of the Playhouse’s vast Quarry space. His Victorian London is gloomy, grimy and shadowy, where candle-lit lamps illuminate the night and ash falls from a smog-laden sky.
The production is staged in the round, with audience members observing the action from all angles. Additional staging, featuring stairways and platforms, surrounds and spans the main set, with characters departing the stage to appear suddenly elsewhere, creating the feel of a hustling, bustling metropolis, where anyone could be hiding around the corner.
Direction and choreography are flawlessly orchestrated to ensure all audience members, regardless of their seat, feel present and part of this world. Costume and props are also splendidly immersive, and swaps are seamlessly integrated.
The production is made complete by its huge cast, many of whom, naturally, are youngsters, chosen for their parts via an open call-out across the north, and whose talent and commitment shine.
The roles of Oliver and The Artful Dodger are each shared by three young actors over the course of the run; on Friday, 9-year-old Nicholas Teixeira took on the titular role with ease, delivering an adroit rendition of Where is Love? to pull many a heartstring. Felix Holt’s Dodger is as Dickens intended: a boy old before his time. Holt has a natural comedic swagger that will undoubtedly take him far.
As for the grown-ups: Steve Furst makes for a memorable and multidimensional Fagin, his wickedness and greed mingling with fleeting displays of kindliness for his young criminal apprentices. Chris Bennett’s Bill Sikes, meanwhile, shows not a shred of humanity and may be the fiercest iteration of one of fiction’s most vicious antagonists that I have ever seen.
And there is, of course, tune after glorious tune, all familiar, but all elevated by Lucy Hind’s exciting choreography. I loved That’s Your Funeral, led by the marvellously macabre undertakers under whose care Oliver briefly finds himself, and Consider Yourself, a musical lover’s dream with its dazzling, full-cast, high-octane performance.
I’d do anything to encourage you to catch this impeccably produced Christmas spectacular at Leeds Playhouse, running until 27 January 2024.
Read more:
- Review: 50 years of Ilkley Literature Festival
- Review: An Audience with Barrie Rutter at Ripon Arts Hub
- Review: The House with Chicken Legs is magic on stage
Boroughbridge performers pick a pocket or two
Boroughbridge theatre company, The Hightimers, are returning to the stage this weekend with a new performance of Oliver Twist.
The Hightimers are named after Boroughbridge High School where they held their first performances back in 1985.
Director, Marlo Lomas, described the company as a family, with many members joining as kids before growing in experience and talent and landing bigger roles.
The company has got “bigger and bigger” according to Lomas and have members ranging from 8-80 years old playing a part in the production.
Oliver Twist was picked as it combines the talents of both younger and more senior actors.
Christopher Bishop, playing the titular Oliver was described as “incredible” by Lomas. He compared his singing voice as “identical” to Kathe Green’s, the woman who’s voice was dubbed over the boy Oliver in the 1968 film version “Oliver!”
The theatre’s previous performances include Grease and Cinderella.
Read More:
- Young Boroughbridge actors finally put on Grease
- Boroughbridge Hightimers return with Cinderella pantomime
Performances at Coronation Hall in Boroughbridge are on every Friday and Saturday until 1 July. You find tickets here starting at £10 with concession tickets available.
They’re a self-funded organisation with the profits going towards future productions and local charities.
