This is the sort of production that you've been swearing they don't make any more. Vibrant, colourful and full of characters who know that good often comes at the cost of a little wickedness here and there. Thomas Brodie Sangster is a highly believable, still largely child-like, Jack Dawkins, aka. The Dodger while David Thewlis, mercifully free of the stereotypes that have dogged the character in the past, makes easy work of the shamelessly light-fingered Fagin. But it is the unashamedly scene-stealing Maia Mitchell as the most unladylike Lady Belle, the governor's daughter, who catches the eye. Which is not to say that we are short-changed on the minor characters with a pliable governor whose scheming wife is clearly the true power, an incompetent chief surgeon with a total lack of self-awareness, a dour policeman who "hangs people for a hobby", and a proper villain played with relish by Tim Minchin. Seems they do make them like this after all!
Review of The Artful Dodger
