I'm reviewing the situation

How a West End hit really hits hard, and other London culture highlights

The company of Oliver! at the Gielgud. Photo: Johan Persson

On Monday, it was reported that Ryan Wellings, who was found guilty of assault and coercive and controlling behaviour, was acquitted of manslaughter following the suicide of his partner, Kiena Dawes, whose final note placed the blame squarely at her fiancé’s feet.

“Ryan Wellings killed me,” she wrote. “He ruined every bit of strength I had left.”

Bear with me, there’s a point to this.

I can’t comment on the verdict, but the bit of The Times’ report that slapped me around the face was this: “The defence argued that while the relationship was undoubtedly ‘difficult and stormy’, it was also ‘loving and affectionate’.”

It really struck me as a WTF line of argument, wilfully ignoring the complex strategies of coercive control, but it also brought to mind a lot of what had stayed with me about Matthew Bourne’s new production of Oliver! in the West End (yes, I’m aware that’s a bit of a curveball).

What I’ve seen

It’s an interesting question, how much we should expect appealing fictional characters to conform to our own point of view.

It rears its head jarringly early in the second half of this revivified version of Lionel Bart’s 1960 musical, now running until March 2026 at the Gielgud Theatre.

Nancy (played with warmth and remarkable subtlety by the massive-voiced Shanay Holmes) has just been hit in the face and threatened, in public, by her lover, Bill Sikes - and it’s interesting to see how wide a berth she is given by the rest of the pitying people on stage, a perceptive bit of work by director and choreographer Bourne - which is the catalyst for her big torch song, As Long As He Needs Me. Her first few lines are sung with a wobble of total shock.

I mean, yikes. A ballad expressing her undying love for Bill, despite his horrific treatment of her, it elicited a whispered “weird message?” from my pal on the night, which is fair - and yet, why not? It’s a classic response from an abused partner, a devastating reflection of the warping of the idea of love that has to take place in such a situation, in order to maintain any sort of sanity or perceived safety.