Blackadder as Fagin

I see from The Financial Times that a revival of the musical Oliver! is playing on stage in London these days.

Rowan Atkinson is playing the part of Fagin. This is what the reviewer, Sarah Hemming, says of Atkinson: "Eyes glinting like the jewels he stashes, he is as quick, crafty and supple as a fox. He can be both funny and darkly sinister: this is an outsider, who has had to learn how to survive." She praises his performance of the song "Reviewing the Situation" for its "delightful, sinuous wit."

Of course, some of us still associate Atkinson with the various "Blackadders" of historical comedy. The earliest, medieval Blackadder was perhaps the best of the lot -- though he was too much of a bumbler, on would have thought, to ever become a Fagin.

Still, in the successive series', Atkinson's Blackadder did become an ever more crafty character, perhaps evolving toward Faginhood generation by generation.

By the way, Hemming thinks well of the production in general, though she's unhappy with the lightheartedness of it. It misses "Dickens' wrath and the desperation he exposes."

Yes, and I recall that was the criticism most often made when Oliver! (music and lyrics by Lionel Bart) was on movie screens, too, back in 1968. The shortcomings of this incarnation of the tale are Bart's fault, then, not peculiar to the production underway on Drury Lane in 2009.

Consider yourself ... informed.