Oliver Twist at Riverside Studios

Oliver Twist at Riverside Studios

05 March, 2009
by: Emma

As I enter room 3 in Riverside Studios I actually think I might have mistakenly stumbled into some sort of school production. The actors are happily chatting to the audience as if they are proud relatives and the small studio is noticeably empty.

This production of Oliver Twist has been put on by Love & Madness - a newish theatre company aiming to bring classical theatre to a younger audience. I wonder if it is this 'new fresh' approach that has encouraged the actors to chat to us before launching into the first scene with little warning. Whatever the goal is, it doesn't work and the opening is incredibly uncomfortable as the five-strong cast that were merrily chatting to us, make their way to the stage and begin singing with the lights still on full whack. 
 
While I can't help but feel initial disappointment about the small-cast-playing-multiple-roles factor (with Oliver's mother giving birth to him before donning a cap and asking for 'more'), it turns out to be a very clever concept and demonstrates the skill of the cast at being able to switch characters within seconds. David Cottis' adaptation of the most-renowned of Dickens' novels is staggeringly ambitious and almost substantiates its claim to 'remain utterly true' to the story. With 55 scenes and 33 character changes, it is no wonder one or two duplicitous subplots have to be binned along the way.

So how do you perform 55 scenes in two hours with only five people? In this case, with a rip-roaring pace and some very adaptable actors. Simon Yadoo shines as Mr Bumble, Bill Sykes and Mr Brownlow - three very different roles.  There is one particularly impressive bit where he begins penning a letter as Mr Bumble, then, in a seamless move, becomes Mr Brownlow reading it aloud. There are several effects like this where either two scenes run concurrently on the stage or one immediately morphs into the next. The cast also act as narrators while they get ready for the next act, filling in any threads which have been skipped. Sometimes it doesn't work, there is too much going on but there is no other way of syncopating such an elaborate novel while remaining faithful to its story-line. Cottis' adaptation does work but this has to rely on the assumption that most people are familiar with the story of Oliver Twist, it is hard to imagine anyone keeping up otherwise.

While there's no denying the pace of the acting is commendable, the performances are rather polarised. Lucia McAnespie is comical as the money-driven Mrs Corney (pictured above) and plays Nancy with real passion. Her final scene with Bill Sykes has the most effect on the audience and it is a tribute to Abigail Anderson's direction and the actors' realistic performances that the violence seems so horrific. Ellie Turner however fails to breathe life into Oliver and Cary Crankson would probably appeal to a much younger audience. He exaggerates each character he plays to the point of ridiculousness, particularly as the sinister Monks. With mad goggly eyes and a voice like Dr Evil (at one moment I thought he might tell Mr Brownlow that his mother was a 15-year-old French prostitute named Chloe with webbed feet), he seems to have come straight from an am-dram workshop on playing creeps.

I find most theatre productions of Oliver Twist, by cutting out what they deem as 'superfluous' scenes, end up removing the heart of the novel. Although humorous in parts there is a lot more to it than comedy and villainy, like the hypocrisy of those in positions of care exposed in Mrs Corney and Mr Bumble or the guilty conscience that can afflict every human being, even those as evil as Sykes and Monks. Cottis' adaptation incorporates a lot of the novel's sub-themes and almost all the dialogue is lifted directly from the text. The darkness and violence of London's criminal underworld really shines through as does the desperation of Oliver trying to avoid it at all costs: ("Please just let me run away and die in the fields").  It certainly can't compete with the glamour and cast of Lionel Bart's Oliver! at the Theatre Royal but if Dickens had to choose between watching Rowan Atkinson warble about picking pockets or watch Preston Clare's Fagin sitting in his cell feverishly waiting to go to the gallows, it's not hard to guess which adaptation he'd choose.

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Emma