The Cameron Mackintosh-backed revival of Lionel Bart’s timeless musical is a “richly realised triumph”, said Sarah Crompton in What’s On Stage. The “magnificent” show, directed and choreographed by Matthew Bourne, and first seen in Chichester last summer, has touched down in London’s West End – and, before opening night, had already extended its run into next year.
Bourne and his co-director Jean-Pierre van der Spuy effortlessly balance the darker elements of Charles Dickens’ novel with “jaunty tunes and cockney knees-up dance numbers”, said Marianka Swain in London Theatre.
The “spry, stripped-back, fluent staging” is enhanced by Lez Brotherston’s “shape-shifting design”: one moment, we’re “plunged into the depths of a grim workhouse”, the next we’re “discovering the strange treasure trove that is Fagin’s lair”.
Paule Constable and Ben Jacobs’ “sublime” lighting deserves plaudits: watching Bill Sikes’ “menacing shadow” emerge from the “smoky darkness” is “genuinely terrifying”. Stephen Metcalfe’s new orchestrations are “always inventive” and so “firmly rooted in character”, they make “enduring earworms” like “Consider Yourself” and “Food, Glorious Food” sound “doubly entertaining”.
“The detail is meticulous,” said Nick Curtis in London’s The Standard. Bourne has crafted a “more intimate version” of the musical that “evokes the spirit of the 1960 premiere” while treating its more complex elements with “finesse and delicacy”. His choreography is “tight and exuberant”, and “my god, the music…” It’s hard to think of a stronger “second-act opening hat-trick” than the “lewd, beery ‘Oom-Pah-Pah’, followed by the wrenching ‘As Long As He Needs Me'” and then the “swelling evocation” of the waking city in “Who Will Buy?”
Of course, much of any show’s ability to “hold an audience enraptured” comes down to the “juvenile lead”, said Dominic Cavendish in The Telegraph. Cian Eagle-Service (one of four rotating Olivers) puts on a “top-notch” performance. With his “expressive face” and “searing solos”, you “couldn’t ask for more, sir”.
Simon Lipkin’s “wonderfully reimagined” portrayal of Fagin is “remarkable”, said Neil Fisher in The Times. “Part lost soul, part sad clown”, he “captures both the plight of the traumatised immigrant and of anyone trying to lead a good life in a dark and devious world”.
I found some of Lipkin’s “vaudevillian embellishments” a bit of a “distraction” and a play for “easy laughs”, said Sam Marlowe in The Stage, but it’s “unarguably a hugely charismatic performance”. In all, Bourne’s take on the “Dickensian favourite” offers “everything its fans will expect, with a flash of extra panache”.
Until March 29 2026 at the Gielgud Theatre, London