... In the Workhouse and The Oracle Lunchtime KING'S HEAD THESE ARE two revivals of plays long forgotten; one a light, trite 18th century piece, the other an expository turn-of-the centry dialogue on the horrific predicament of improverished married women ...

... five hands and four ghosts. It started somewhat strangely in an 1 843 Carshalton haberdashery store with fugitives from the workhouse dossing down for the night. But it put all the costumes and props ready to hand for quick on stage changes in a very mobile ...

... that this is a show that is in no need of reinvention. Lionel Bart himself put it all in the poignant opening in the gloomy workhouse, the repressive work driven horrors of the undertaker's house, the happy go lucky illegality of Fagin's underground lair ...

... character, and at the end battles on into another life. The Brownlow family, so important in the book in contrasting Oliver's workhouse life to true kindness and understanding, gets the most perfunc tory of mentions, before being rapidly merged with the Maylies' ...