Oliver! - Rowan Atkinson cast as Fagin
Story by Lizzie Guilfoyle
IT HAS now been confirmed that Cameron Mackintosh’s West End revival of Lionel Bart’s musical, Oliver! will open on January 14, 2009 (previews from December 12, 2008) at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane, with Rowan Atkinson in the role of Fagin.
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 which is currently playing on Broadway. Oliver! will mark his musical debut.
Joining Goold will be two members of Mendes’ original creative team – Matthew Bourne, who will co-direct and choreograph; and set designer Anthony Ward. Between December 1994 and February 1998, the Mendes’ production clocked up 1,366 performances and grossed more than £40 million at the box office.
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.
Atkinson last appeared on stage over 20 years ago with his one-man show Rowan Atkinson In Revue (Globe Theatre, now the Gielgud, plus UK and international tours).
A founder member and sketch writer of the BBC satire Not The Nine O’Clock News, he has also appeared on television in the hugely successful Blackadder series, Mr Bean which spawned two feature films – Bean: The Ultimate Disaster Movie and Mr Bean’s Holiday – and the Ben Elton sitcom The Thin Blue Line. His other big screen credits include The Tall Guy, Four Weddings and a Funeral, Scooby Doo, Love Actually and Johnny English.
Speaking about his role as Fagin, Atkinson said:
“In the 1980s I enjoyed doing a lot of West End theatre and since then have been distracted very much by Mr Bean and film making. I had been thinking for some time about returning to the stage and the idea of the role of Fagin, which has long intrigued me – some time ago I even played the role in a school production – seemed like too good an opportunity to miss.”
And in a press statement, Mackintosh said:
“I’m thrilled that Rowan Atkinson has finally reviewed the situation and succumbed to his long-held ambition to play Fagin. We have been discussing the possibility on and off for many years and to me this idea has always promised the perfect marriage of a brilliant mercurial role with a brilliant mercurial comic actor.
For this production I will be having a cast and orchestra of over 100, including an exciting new Nancy and Oliver, who Andrew Lloyd Webber and BBC TV’s I’d Do Anything are helping us to discover. It was while I was enjoying my first theatre job as a stagehand at Drury Lane 43 years ago that I was given a chorus part in the original national tour of Oliver! and I first met Lionel Bart, so I will consider myself truly back home with this production. I only wish Lionel was here to see it.”
I’d Do Anything is currently airing on BBC1 on Saturday evenings.
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The Lord of the Rings continues at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane until July 19, 2008.