Chichester Festival Theatre: Cameron Mackintosh on new Oliver! production

Chichester Festival Theatre’s summer musicals are world-renowned. Audiences flock from far and wide to see them, and many go on to the West End.

This year’s offering, Lionel Bart’s Oliver!, will see Matthew Bourne – internationally renowned for his ground-breaking reinventions of dance classics such as Swan Lake and Edward Scissorhands, as well as his Olivier Award-winning choreography for My Fair Lady and Mary Poppins – making his Chichester debut as both director and choreographer.

And since Cameron Mackintosh is behind this new production, it’s no surprise that following its premiere at Chichester this summer from 8th July – 7th September, it will be heading for London in December.

Cameron explains his love of Oliver!, and longstanding friendships and collaborations with Lionel Bart and Matthew Bourne… 

“I was taken to see Oliver! for the first time as a 13-year-old schoolboy, by my aunt, shortly after it opened in June 1960. Lionel’s glorious songs and Sean Kenny’s brilliant, innovative scenery blew me away and the show changed the British musical for ever.

“Five years later I managed to get myself hired on the first British National Tour of Oliver!, both as performer and assistant stage manager. On the opening night in Manchester, I met the show’s creator Lionel Bart for the first time.

“We met again in 1977 when, serendipitously, the ownership of the show’s rights changed hands, giving me the opportunity to present a hugely successful long-running revival of the original production, both on tour and in London, back in the New Theatre where it first opened, followed by a stint on Broadway.

“I was taken to see Oliver! for the first time as a 13-year-old schoolboy. Lionel’s glorious songs and Sean Kenny’s brilliant, innovative scenery blew me away and the show changed the British musical for ever.”

Cameron Mackintosh

“Long before this, Lionel Bart had rashly sold off his stage rights in Oliver! As I contemplated mounting a new production, I was offered co-ownership of the rights for the very first time - allowing me to give Lionel a piece of his original royalty back - as well as becoming guardian of his artistic rights as author of the show’s book, music and lyrics which he had also given away.

“My longstanding friendship and collaboration with Matthew Bourne began with the spectacularly successful new 1994 production of Oliver! at the London Palladium, which we subsequently remounted in 2008 on an even grander scale, with a cast of over 80, led by Rowan Atkinson.

“We had planned to bring Oliver! to London just as Covid shut down everyone’s lives. The enforced wait got us thinking that having already done the biggest production ever of Oliver!, we were inspired to go back to the more intimate ensemble roots of the brilliant original at the New Theatre, now the Noël Coward.

“We are thrilled to have found an exciting young cast (of similar age to the original) led by Simon Lipkin (Fagin), Shanay Holmes (Nancy), Aaron Sidwell (Bill Sikes) and Billy Jenkins (Dodger) who ‘consider themselves part of the family’ creating this brand-new reimagining of Lionel’s fabulous masterpiece for 2024.”