Review: Oliver! Millennium Centre, Cardiff

THE Wales Millennium Centre has seen lots of tuneful, musical shows in its short history. Seldom, however, has it played host to one quite as good as this.

Neil Morrissey, playing that warped scoutmaster Fagin, is the eyebrow-wriggling, funny-walking, laugh-wringing supremo in Lionel Bart’s wonderful musical which has just opened for a month-long run in Cardiff.

But he is not the only rocket of the night. Samantha Barks as Nancy, stands up to the test like a sturdy galleon. She swings her hips and heaves her all into the role.

And both Oliver himself, played on Tuesday night by 12-year-old Harry Polden and Artful Dodger — Max Greisbach — were truly astonishing.

The show opens with about 50 urchins banging their lunch bowls on the dining-room tables at Mr Bumble’s workhouse.

The sets are sumptuous, shafts of silvery light shining through the workhouse’s broken window panes at one point, and later the streets of Victorian London opening up like a three-dimensional birthday card.

They have to be seen to be believed.

The pulsating first scene sets the pace for a show that is a theatrical must-see.

By the time we reach Fagin’s lair, the Lionel Bart songs are pumping away — Food Glorious Food, Boy For Sale and Consider Yourself. The gang’s hangout is a troglodyte’s cave under the streets of London, reached via a manhole. Again, the sets are incredible.

Morrissey then takes to the stage bringing a great cheer from the crowd. Then before you know it, he is into You Gotta Pick a Pocket or Two.

He deploys all his comedic tricks with ease to form part of a show that is stage entertainment at its very, very best.

Need a bit of cheering up to get you into the new year? I suggest you beat a hasty path to Cardiff.

This is a show that ought not to be missed!