OLIVER!
(1980)
In what was to be the last SSHS Drama Club production in the “old school theatre”, we presented Lionel Bart’s incredible musical “Oliver!”. Again our set designers and construction crew came up with a wonderful set that created the variety of scenes utilizing a revolving stage and two huge stage ‘trucks’. These set pieces were in front of a great representation of Victorian London on a huge backdrop painted by Peter Bresnen. Memorable tunes including “As Long As He Needs Me”, “Consider Yourself”, Reviewing The Situation”, and many others again sent the audience home whistling, humming or singing the songs from the show. Some inventive choreography by Derrian Smith added another dimension to the performances.
Our children Karen and Christine appeared in the production.
“Oliver!” was a fitting finale to our performances on the original SSHS stage.
Memories: the reactions on the orphans’ faces when they had to eat the workhouse gruel - especially when we added different “ingredients” each performance to get the desired reaction from the cast.
Another memory was the “artist’s mind game” played on the audience. Buried in the huge painted Victorian London backdrop was a tiny “Macdonald’s golden arch”. We defied numerous people to find it...no one ever did…. but it was definitely there!
George Justason played the evil Bill Sykes in the production. In the show George was “shot” and was to fall off the high back wall of the set into a safety landing area of gym mats. In one performance, George’s enthusiasm got a little too strong and he hit the back wall of the stage during his “fall”. My colleague, Norbert Goodin crawled on hands and knees behind the scenery, out of sight from the audience, to see if George was ok. It was quite a sight seeing George take his curtain call with a bloodied nose.
