'Please Sir, can I have some more?'

In 27.5 years I had never seen Oliver.

As a HUGE fan of musicals I really should have. The 1968 film won 5 Oscars. The stage show has been performed in 22 languages but something always put me off. It's not the music- the songs are all wonderfully emotive (some massive, flamboyant romps; others heart wrenchingly magnificant solos.) It's not that it was unfamiliar - my friend Clare put on many a solo performance in her front room when we were children, singing along to the cassette tape of the soundtrack in full cockney accent; yet I still never sat down and watched it. In fact I've always avoided it. Why? Because I expected it to be depressing - the one thing musicals should never be. Surely it goes against their very point!

Plays can be depressing - they can rip at every emotion you have until you're bruised and battered but musicals? Surely there's no place for the heorine to be killed by her abusive lover here? Well in Oliver! there is. And 20 years after Clare's one person show, I've seen it. And it was worth the wait.

First off the stage at the Theatre Royal is gigantic! From the poor people's seats right up in the balcony you get a real sense for the depth of space yet the scenery, the huge chorus and throng of orphaned children that fill the stage transport you to 1838 in a whirl of colourful exhuberence and contageous energy. The cast were phenomenal - Russ Abbott is a playful, endearing but often short fused Fagin while Kerry Ellis is flawless as the flawed leading lady. Every song is a classic and even though Bill Sykes is possibly top of my list of on-stage baddies, he's supposed to be. Because the 1830s wouldn't have been an easy time for the poor, homeless or abandoned and characters like Sykes would have (albeit momentarily) thrived.

I can't fault this production. I loved the staging, i loved the costumes (the jewel colours throughout the underground den are a fantatsic choice) and god Kerry Ellis can sing! Oliver! was simply everything it could have been and more. It's just a shame it took me so long to see it.

Oliver! At the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. Runs until the new year.