Day Three: Oliver!

So today's post is a musical that I personally feel is underrated, one that is called Oliver! 

So Oliver! is about an orphan who starts out the show eating lunch in a workhouse owned by these really cruel owners, Mr. Bumble and the Widow Corney. He ends up getting sold to another undertaker, named Sowerberry. He is treated even worse with the Sowerberry, who keep Oliver in a basement.

After one of Sowerberry's workers insult Oliver's dead mother, Oliver starts attacking the worker and Mr. Sowerberry has no choice but to put in him in a coffin, but while arguing with his daughter, Charlotte, Oliver escapes.

A week later, he runs into the Artful Dodger, who convinces him to join Mr. Fagin and his team of boy pickpocketers and Oliver decides to join, at first not realizing that they pickpocket. Oliver meets Nancy, who is the live-in girlfriend of abusive burglar Bill Sikes and she doesn't mind the abuse he gives her all the time. Oliver, Dodger and another boy try to pickpocket from a wealthy man named Mr. Brownlow, but Oliver gets arrested and confined to the Brownlow household while the other two sneak away.

Bill comes up with a plan to get Oliver. At first, Nancy refuses, but he beats her to the point where she must obey, but she believes that he beats her because he loves her and convinces herself that. Oliver is re-kidnapped by Bill and Nancy and is saved by Nancy when Bill tries to beat Oliver for trying to flee from them. 

Meanwhile, this long lost locket of Oliver's mother is recovered and is later discovered that Mr. Brownlow is Oliver's grandfather. Nancy sneaks Oliver out and Bill has some suspicion on what Nancy was about to do. He knocks Oliver unconscious and kidnaps him after Bill clubs Nancy to death. He holds Oliver hostage on a bridge, threatening to kill him when the police apprehend him and save Oliver. They return the boy to Brownlow and Fagin, who has been thinking about what he really wanted to do with his life, has vowed to try and change his life around.

So Oliver! sounds like your basic orphan show, but it's so much better than Annie. I'm sorry if you like the show, but it's been done for a while now. No one knows about Oliver! and its potential greatness, yet everyone knows the "Tomorrow" tune (it has been sung to death.)

This song is sung by Nancy and it's how she still thinks that Bill beats her because he loves her. The song is called "As Long As He Needs Me." I love this version of the song, it sounds so pure!