Oliver!

Walmsley Church Amateur Operatic Society has gone to town with Oliver! And the town certainly ought to go to Walmsley any night this week.

From a staging point of view, the society, though its history is long, can surely never have been more adventurous and successful. The production is as much an engineering as an artistic achievement. The two-level stage not only revolves, but revolves in tempo with the music and the action. With the same good timing, extra pieces are lowered from the flies when wanted and hauled back again when done with.

The lighting is excellent. And, just as in a modern professional theatre, the producer, Derek Taylor, can watch the show and, by means of an intercom, discreetly draw the attention of his Stage Manager to anything that is going wrong. If anything did last night, I missed it.

The costumes (by the society's wardrobe mistress and Trevor Cresswell) are splendid.

Lionel Bart's book is a very hurried and sketchy version of Oliver Twist and can do little more than vaguely remind one of the Dickens novel. He has spread himself more on the music and the lyrics and Oliver (Christopher Waites' boy soprano) and nearly everyone else in the cast have more to sing than to say.

The orchestra, under J. Arnold Thornton, accompanies powerfully but most soloists emit decibels enough to come through, notably Alan Lee (Bumble the Beadle) and Nora Holder (Nancy). As the Artful Dodger, Don Howcroft has a neatly humourous style in dance and general deportment, and Arnold Knowles is a balletic Fagin who could get around anybody but the hangman. David Greenhalgh is formidable as Bill Sykes, Ernest Pollitt a model of clarity as Mr Brownlow. The two choruses - children and adults - vie in heartiness.

J.W.

Not even Oliver Twist could ask for more. Here, staged in a schoolroom at Egerton, on the Darwen road out of Bolton, was a presentation of Lionel Bart's musical version of the Dickens classic by Walmsley Church ODS that would match anything that the big societies could do.

It was not only the use of a home-made push-button electrically-operated revolving stage - though this was a triumph for the technical staff - that made this North-West premiere as much a theatrical experience as an entertainment. Everything else about Derek Taylor's production was just right too.

The frame scenery was a scaled down, almost exact replica of the London production and every change of scenery - and there were ten - was done in seconds before our eyes, even to the lowering of London Bridge. This made for such slickness that the curtain was down in two and a half hours flat, a remarkably short running time for the first night. There were back projection impressions of snow and racing clouds and lighting appropriate to every change of atmosphere.

It was expertly cast for types too. Don Howcroft was outstanding as the Artful Dodger and other impressive characterisations were given by Alan Lee as a bumbling Beadle, Ernest Pollitt as the compassionate Mr Brownlow, Arnold Knowles as an almost human Fagin, David Greenhalgh an odious Bill Sykes, Nora Holder a down-to-earth Nancy, Glenys Poole a sluttish Bet and Christopher Waites, in his first part, as a timorous Oliver. There are two choruses of twelve children each, playing alternate nights to comply with the law, many of the costumes are also home-made and the whole production cost only six hundred pounds.

Here then, for most amateur operatic societies, is the do-it-yourself answer to rising costs and scenery difficulties. Already one of the bigger societies, Urmston OS, have hired the revolve and bought the rest of the scenery.

Tom Wildern

During the eight months' search for this season's winners of the Evening News and Chronicle Opera Cup I had compiled up to last weekend a short list of five possibles. They were: October (1967), Stockport OS "Guys and Dolls"; November, New Mills ODS "The Dancing Years"; March (1968), Ashton OS "Kiss Me Kate"; April, North Manchester ODS "The Quaker Girl"; and Prestwich DOS "Carousel".

There were several shows I had been unable to see because of the annual crowding of fixtures, two of which were favourably reported on by colleagues, and All Saints OS with "The Merry Widow" and Manchester Opera Company with "Simon Boccanegra" are in splendid isolation in May, too late to be reckoned in this years' calculations.

So it looked as though the Cup was going once again to one of the "big boys". But there was one show to come and this provided the surprise of the season.

It was the North West premiere of "Oliver!" by Walmsley ODS at Egerton, Bolton. One should not have been surprised really because the splendid church societies of Bolton are a byword in North West amateur opera, but the merit of this performance was really something.

Here was a shoestring production - it cost around £600 - which showed that, given the right conditions, a stage that is freely available, the technical know-how and dedicated workers, amateur opera can still beat the bogey of ever-rising costs and scenery difficulties.

By means of drawings made on frequent visits to the London production and technical Press photographs, the stage technicians at Walmsley made a replica of the professional setting.

This was mounted on a revolving stage which took six months to perfect. Powered by a 1.5-hp electric motor, this was so efficient that during the chase scene half a dozen players ran up a flight of steps while the set revolved, right out of one scene and down another flight into the next scene. This was perfect continuity.

The revolve is to become a permanent feature, and I can visualise it being used for that interior-to-exterior switch when the society gives "Robert and Elizabeth" next November.

Other technical tricks were exploited to build up the atmosphere, but this was no gimmick show: the performance matched the excellence of the mechanics.

The casting itself was inspired in regard to types, there was a uniform level in the standard of principals, and a neat appreciation by one and all that this was a study of the seamy side of life.

And so, for the first time, the Opera Cup goes to one of the smaller fry, a church schoolroom society, a rank outsider if one can apply such a term to a society that has been presenting opera for 40 years.

They get it for technical achievement on and off the stage and for providing the best-yet example of the "do-it-yourself" policy recommended by the National Operatic and Dramatic Association.

But for this Bolton bolt from the blue I would have awarded the Cup to the North Manchesters for the sheer entertainment value of their "Quaker Girl", Stockport OS would be my No.3 for "Guys and Dolls".