"Unexpected Twist"

Nottingham Theatre Royal.

Charles Dickens' characters suddenly come alive as a class of school children read his book in their English lesson. They take on a modern persona as Shona, whose single father is having trouble making ends meet. Shona is offered a free mobile phone at school but realises she is expected to use it to “fetch and carry” for a street gang.

Based on Michael Rosen’s book of the same name, it's been adapted by Roy Williams, and draws out modern-day parallels with events that were told in Dickens' classic "Oliver Twist" regarding street crime regarding children.

Money laundering, mobile phones and beatboxing, riffing and rapping with a few ballads thrown in for good measure. All a far cry from the Dickensian days of the workhouse.

The music side of this production may, at first glance put people off but let's think about where rapping and beatboxing originated. Back in the 1950's groups of youths would congregate on a street corner and sing using just their voices for musical accompaniment, and doo wop was born.

Accapella music has always been around through bands like the Penguins, The Clovers and The Flamingoes, through to The Flying Pickets and in the last couple of decades, Pentatonix, Natural 7 and Straight No Chaser.

Add a street cred version of accapella and you get rapping. Add Beatboxing, which for those who don't know is making musical sounds with the vocal chords, mainly as a backing to accapella, and you get a self-contained music factory. People berate artists like Eminem but his words are just as important to the generations, and take away the music and you have poetry.

The rapping, riffing and beatboxing in this production is infectious in its' sound and is delivered in such a way that it hits your feet first and works its' way up, and with the poetry in the lyrics ends up in the brain. This is all clever stuff and succeeds in delivering the required message.

"Oliver" or Shona, as the equivalent modern-day character here, is played by Drew Hylton. First off, Drew has a voice you want to listen to, in fact you can't help but listen to because she hypnotises your ears. With a sound like Lauryn Hill and Alicia Keys, she has such an easy voice to tune in to with just the right amount of vocal acrobatics not to distract from what she is saying.

Thomas Vernal plays Shona's Dad, a warm character who is doing his best under terrible circumstances. Thomas's voice is silky smooth, and when these two actors duet, it was like pouring melted caramel chocolate down my throat. Pure heaven.

Nan, who is the equivalent of Fagin as she has the "hood" doing her bidding for her, is played by Polly Lister. Polly also plays Lorraine, Shona's late mother's sister who has been absent from the scene, and that is explained in Act Two. A very distinctive voice and a lovely character actor to boot. When we see Nan in hospital, there are three Dickensian characters in silhouette behind her which give hints to her criminal past but also adds an air of suspense and threat.

Shona's new class teacher, Miss Cavani, is played by Rosie Hilal, who we also discover, despite trying to save the children from being used on the streets, has issues of her own at home, which also gets sorted out. Miss Cavani is the "Nancy" role, becoming apparent in Act Two.

The "Sikes" character, which we all know is the nasty one in "Oliver" is played by James Meteyard. James plays Pops and reflects also the Noah Claypole role. There is a section where he inflicts violence on one of his "employees", and this is the only part of the production that i thought was just a bit strong for the younger audience members. James is an incredible beatboxer, but look into his CV and he has done quite a bit of Shakespeare as well, indicating what a flexible and talented actor he is.

Alex Hardie plays Gazz/Charlie Bates. Gazz takes a beating, and the fight choreography for this section (Kate Waters) was done very well, it actually made me wince. As with all the performers/musicians, a very talented vocal performer.

Brilliant performances by Kate Donnachie (Desree/Dodger), Nadine Rose-Johnson (Rosie/Dodger), Alexander Lobo Moreno (Tino/Dodger) and Liyah Summers (Rasheda/Dodger/Nancy).

The original music is composed by Conrad Murray and Yaya Bey. The music is incredibly catchy while on stage but away from the theatre, I couldn't remember most of the tunes, but earworms like "School School", "I've Got A Phone" and the beautiful duet "I Remember the Beach" still cling to the inner membranes of my ears.

Directed by James Dacre, this production is very pacy, especially when the lighting blinds you and then you see a bare stage. There's no hanging about anywhere in this show, and I like that: you soon learn to ingest everything fast to make sure that you get the whole story. Part of the swift set changes is also down to an excellent stage management crew.

Designed by Frankie Bradshaw, this set was multi levelled and a great idea to have the set combination of lockers of various sizes, doubling as steps to the higher level, as well as enclosing everything needed for the market stall scenes.

The choreography was fresh man, yes even an older man like myself can appreciate the dope dance drops and the work put into this particular area of the show. Arielle Smith pulled out all the stops to create an excellent dance program.

The Lighting Design, by Rory Beaton, matched the choreography. Exciting to the eye.

The Sound, by Leigh Davis was very clear and captured the excitement of films such as "Eight Mile" with the booming sound of the beatboxers making their mark but a wonderfully clear top end of the scale, balanced nicely.

It started off as an exercise of retuning my ears to the language used, no swearing by the way, and as soon as the retune kicked in, which wasn't long, I really settled in to this exciting on all levels musical. And what is also important to mention is that there is a serious message delivered by this story, and hopefully picked out and understood by the younger audience members. It also shows that however old a piece of literature is, it can still be relevant to the issues of the 2023 world.

Music, of any genre, can be used to deliver good messages, as well as bad, and I am so glad that it's not the same as when I were a lad, because I have learnt much from music. And if music didn't develop, I wouldn't be able to cite artists like ArrDee, Stormzy, Example as influential and Lady LeShurr would never have been seen on "Dancing On Ice", bringing credibility to weekend TV reality shows.

"Unexpected Twist" is now in Nottingham town, so y'all dig deep and get on down. Don't miss out or you'll be miffed as it's only here till the twenty fifth. Mic drop!