Content area
Full Text
Fagin's Twist. Avant Garde Dance Company, The Place, London: 28 September-15 October 2016.
Fagin's Twist is an impressive piece of dance-theatre, taking Oliver Twist as a starting point and offering an inventive take on the iconic characters and their story. with costumes and set drawn clearly from the period, the fusion of street and contemporary dance styles is surprisingly effective - the fancy footwork, the ducking and diving, the gang formations and confrontations suit the culture of pickpocketing and theft endemic in London's nineteenth-century underbelly.
The Artful Dodger acts as occasional narrator, beginning with advising us not to believe what we think we know about the story of Oliver Twist. The spoken word is very well delivered and is used only as much as is necessary - with some amusing references to some of Lionel Bart's lyrics for Oliver!
The first act gives us thought-provoking backstories for Fagin and Bill Sikes, who meet and become friends in a workhouse before escaping and going into 'business' together. Fagin dreams of having a gold pocket watch; Sikes just wants a girlfriend. We meet Nancy as Fagin's gang of street urchins comes together and,...