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 Connecting professional and amateur theatre in Newbury, West Berkshire and beyond

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The Community of Hungerford Theatre Company

The Hungerford Theatre Company web site is at www.hungerfordtheatre.com. Facebook CoHTC. Twitter: @Hngrfrd_theatre. Also see our Young Performers, Children's Theatre and Youth Theatre productions here.

Last production

Where

John O' Gaunt College Hall, Priory Road, Hungerford RG17 0AN.

Tickets

Tickets from our web site or from Crown Needlework, 115 High Street, Hungerford.
Tel: 01488 684011 - Credit and debit cards accepted.

Reviews of Oliver!

14th to 17th February 2024

Review from the Newbury Weekly News.

Consider yourselves well in…

Everybody involved gave the Hungerford town show Oliver! their very best shot


Taking on a large-scale musical like Oliver! is a brave and tricky assignment for any amateur group. Lacking an army of seasoned choreographers, voice coaches, musical directors, actors and directors found in professional theatre, the amateurs are on their own with limited resources and just their own enthusiasm and talent to carry them through. A lot of hard work had obviously gone into this CHTC production.

From the opening sequence with the young actors singing Food, Glorious Food to the dramatic ending, these talented citizens of Hungerford, young and old worked hard. Very hard.

It was unfortunate that there were not enough young men and boys to fill all the acting roles. Casting young women in the roles of Oliver, Bill Sikes and even the Artful Dodger made it difficult to suspend disbelief. Curiously, the programme listed an understudy as Dodger, a young man, although the part was played by Naomi Heer.

Understudy Tim Beckwith played Fagin in the performance we saw and did well with it. Gareth Burgess was a suitably bumbling Bumble and Karen Ashby, Widow Corney. Delilah Freeman convinced as Oliver as she was playing a small boy whose voice had not broken. Others were not so lucky. Other parts were well acted although there was a lack of rough, cockney voices in the scenes with Fagin, with one exception… Sasha Lovell was very good as Nancy, with voice, movement and swagger all spot-on.

Individual singers performed very well although group singing in choral style was occasionally a little shaky, as were some of the large-scale dance routines,

Paul Sanday and Lesley Vallance produced very fine set designs that suited the quick-change scenes as they came up.

Lionel Bart’s all singing, all dancing spectacular musical is a challenge for any company, amateur or professional. If there were any flaws in this production, it would be understandable.

Director Hoffi Robinson did very well to put it all together and keep it flowing at a reasonably good pace. Indeed, she deserves a medal for not running out the school hall screaming – or maybe she did at times – as co-ordinating 15 adult performers and 19 child actors and organising the singing, dancing and other activities was a mammoth task.

She did it very well and everybody involved at CHTC gave it their very best shot from start to finish.

DEREK ANSELL

Previous Productions

Theatre for Everyone – The Community of Hungerford Theatre Company