With child hunger and antisemitism each making a comeback in Britain, a revival of Lionel Bart’s Oliver! has – amid its tunes, glorious tunes – an unwanted topicality. And though Bart’s 1960 musical twist on Dickens is one to which audiences will always warm, it is notably hard to cast and stage. There is a child central character, meaning that, unusually, the protagonist has only one solo: Where Is Love? And equally unusually for the genre, it has a love story that is violent and coercive: Nancy and Bill Sikes. After a first hour with no romantic ballads, Bart cleverly...
Monitoring Antisemitism Intel
