The statistics about the working poor in Theresa May’s Britain leave rightwing ideologues with a dilemma. When, as revealed last week by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, 4 million workers are living below the poverty line (a number that has swollen by 500,000 in the last five years), it is no longer credible to blame the poor for their own misfortune. These are people with jobs, so the argument about a class of workshy idlers is exposed for the lie it always was – and a seasonal helping of Oliver Twist reminds us not just of how much a fallacy it is, but also of the cruelty of a philosophy used by the ignorant rich against those least able to fight back.
“Old women can’t even die without annoying their betters,” says Claire Storey’s self-satisfied Widow Corney, being called to attend to Flo Wilson’s Old Sally as she breathes her last. This, only minutes after Ian Jervis’s pompous Mr Bumble has accused a pauper of obstinacy for dying in the street. Their callous disregard for the cruelty around them is as distressing as it is believable.
Adapter Deborah McAndrew says, with justification, that a family Christmas show “isn’t the moment to do an intense critique of the criminal underworld of Victorian London” but she knows the season of goodwill certainly is a time for Oliver Twist. Hers is no saccharine view of criminality. Nor does she gloss over injustice. Rather, Mark Babych’s production commits itself to a story that pleads for empathy instead of prejudice, understanding in place of vitriol.
Dickens argues that crime is fed less by malice than need (the inhumanity of Samuel Edward-Cook’s hard-bitten Bill Sikes notwithstanding). It is circumstance that drives young Oliver to a life of pickpocketing; the same circumstance that nearly knocks the goodness out of Lauryn Redding’s Nancy until her 11th-hour moment of contrition when she comes to Oliver’s aid.
Romanticised? Yes, but that suits the time of year, especially as the Christmas carols swell at the top and tail of John Biddle’s sumptuous choral score. Close to being through-composed, the production is dominated by music, the harmonic power of the Hull Truck ensemble a statement of collective action in itself. At the start of the show, McAndrew’s script has a picture-book simplicity, swiftly establishing the story’s elements and letting the songs carry much of the narrative weight. She gets more wordy as the show goes on, but music is central throughout.
The result of the economical plotting is to underplay the Dickensian character comedy, although there’s still room for Wilson to make an authoritative impression doubling as a female Fagin and for Henry Armstrong (alternating with Tilly Sproats) to offer a superb Oliver, all scowling vulnerability and honest reactions – the star of a seamlessly integrated young company.
As a production, it is a tightly drilled machine, making up in slickness and energy what it lacks in spontaneity. On Ciaran Bagnall’s multi-level set of wooden walkways laden with ropes and chains and stretching into the auditorium, it envelops us in a rich music-theatre world. Siân Thomas’s costumes go from the dreary monochrome of the provinces to the russets, maroons and greens of London – you couldn’t call it gaudy, but there’s a suggestion of ill-gotten wealth. If there’s a slight emotional distance that stops you being moved, it remains a polished, absorbing and satisfying show.
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