Oliver! - final casting announced
Preview by Lizzie Guilfoyle
FINAL casting has been announced for Cameron Mackintosh’s revival of the Lionel Bart musical Oliver!, which opens at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane on January 14, 2009 (previews from December 12, 2008).
Joining Rowan Atkinson (as Fagin), Burn Gorman (Bill Sikes), Jodie Prenger (Nancy), Julian Bleach (Mr Sowerberry) and Rosemary Leach (Mrs Bedwin), will be Tamsin Carroll, Julius D’Silva (Mr Bumble), Wendy Ferguson (Widow Corney) and Sarah Lark. Eric Dibb Fuller, Robert Madge and Ross McCormack will alternate in the role of the Artful Dodger.
Meanwhile, the title role will be shared by Gwion Jones, Harry Stott and Laurence Jeffcoate, the three youngsters chosen by Mackintosh and Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber as part of I’d Do Anything‘s search for an unknown to play the part of Nancy.
The winner of the competition was, of course, Jodie Prenger. However, on Wednesday and Thursday evenings, Nancy will be played by Tamsin Carroll, who starred as Nancy in Mackintosh’s 2002 Australian production of the musical. And the role will be covered by another I’d Do Anything contestant, Sarah Lark, who will also regularly play a street seller in the musical number Who Will Buy.
Based on Charles Dickens’ classic novel Oliver Twist, Oliver! is the story of a young orphan boy who runs away from an orphanage and becomes involved with a group of boys trained to be pickpockets by an elderly mentor, the incorrigible Fagin. It includes the songs Food Glorious Food, Consider Yourself, You’ve Got To Pick-A-Pocket Or Two, As Long as He Needs Me, I’d do Anything and, of course, the title song.
The new production, based on Sam Mendes’ 1994 staging at the London Palladium, will be directed by Rupert Goold, Artistic Director of Headlong Theatre, who recently won the Olivier, Critics’ Circle and Evening Standard Awards for Best Director for his Patrick Stewart-led Macbeth. Oliver! will mark his musical debut.