Oliver!: 'Nancy shows what women are capable of'

An actor in the latest West End adaptation of Oliver! praised the production for how it represented women.

Buckinghamshire-born actress Shanay Holmes is playing Nancy in the Lionel Bart musical, staged at the Gielgud Theatre.

She said she played a powerful and vulnerable character who remained just as relevant as when Charles Dickens published the original Oliver Twist story in 1837.

The star said: "I challenge anyone to not know a Nancy; a strong powerful woman who self-sacrifices, brings joy to other people and depletes herself so entirely because she wants others to feel good".

"Playing Nancy has really shown me who I am as a woman and what woman are capable of," she added.

Bart, who could not read or write music, premiered his adaptation of Oliver at Wimbledon Theatre in 1960.

In 1968 it was turned into an Oscar-winning film starring Ron Moody, Oliver Reed and Shani Wallis.

Holmes said the latest production, the first on London's West End since 2011, still feels just as current as it did when it first started.

She said: "I put my whole life experience into Nancy and make her honest and as truthful [as possible].

"I really try and pay the greatest respect to the aspects of her story that need the most serving [such as] the domestic violence, the abusive nature of her relationship to Bill and her self-sacrificing nature. I think by doing that you are making it current.

"The pure resilience of her, how powerful she is but also how vulnerable we as women can be. It's so relevant and prominent now. There's women in my life that are like that and I see myself in Nancy a lot"

Essex actor Simon Lipkin, who plays Fagin, said the story remains relevant because of Dickens.

He said: "The beauty of Dickens' writing is he truly held a mirror up to society and didn't let anyone off the hook.

"When you would read this stuff you would have no choice but to acknowledge your part of the puzzle and you would see yourself in some capacity. What's amazing is you would see yourself in people that were different to you."

He believed the musical still remained relevant as the characters from the story still exist in modern society even if now slightly changed.

"Of course there are Fagins, I'm literally basing my performance as Fagin on half of my family so yes there are Fagins, minus the criminal small child gathering.

"Those people absolutely exist, it's just time and society changes them and presents them in a different way."

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