Music, lyrics, and book by Lionel Bart. Directed by Michael Shamata. A Playhouse Theatre Company production. At the Vancouver Playhouse on Thursday, November 22. Continues until December 15>

For the most part, director Michael Shamata's version of Oliver! is grim and soulless.

Admittedly, Oliver! has a dark edge. The title character is an orphan whose unmarried mother died in a poorhouse. One of Oliver's most important allies is a prostitute who gets murdered. But Lionel Bart's adaptation of Charles Dickens's novel contains buoyantly rambunctious songs, including "Food, Glorious Food", "Consider Yourself", and "I'd Do Anything". Oliver! is a Broadway entertainment, not a Dickensian novel. It's witty. It's entertaining. It has an exclamation mark in the title!

For this Playhouse production, designer John Ferguson provides a depressing set that looks like it's made of filthy brick. As if to deliberately distance the audience from the material, several songs are delivered from behind iron grates. An overhead walkway flies in and out, a staircase moves around, and those damn grates see a lot of action, but none of the activity adds up to anything that feels like warmth.

Besides the machinelike set, there are a number of reasons for the production's chilliness. The four-piece orchestra, which is stowed away out of sight somewhere, is too tiny and muted to create the rush of music that would ideally embrace us. Although moodily beautiful at times, Gerald King's lighting is so dark that it's impossible to feel even remotely celebratory. (Why on earth would anyone burst into happy song in this environment?) Within this gloomy vision, Nancy Bryant's costumes are a gratifying exercise in Victorian excess.

Several of the performances are excellent. Tom McBeath is compellingly venal and conflicted as Fagin, the old miser who runs a ring of child pickpockets. Warren Kimmel is splendid as Mr. Bumble, the man in charge of the orphanage where Oliver lives, and as a pompous physician named Grimwig. Kimmel's rich, ringing tone makes Bumble's "Boy for Sale" one of the musical highlights of the evening. Appropriately, Simon Bradbury allows the tenderness of the story to flow freely when he appears as Brownlow, a wealthy Londoner who comes to Oliver's rescue. And young Morgan Roff is charismatically at ease as Oliver's would-be pickpocketing mentor, the Artful Dodger.

In many ways, Brian Riback is well cast in the title role. He looks like a sparrow, sings with strength, and possesses a persuasive stillness. However, as an actor, all he does is play a one-note waif. He's nine. It's not his fault. Shamata has cast too young. Karin Konoval, who plays Nancy, the whore with the requisite heart of gold, struggled on opening night. Her acting was touching, but illness made her voice so ragged she could barely croak out "As Long as He Needs Me". Here's hoping for a speedy recovery.

There's enough talent here that this show could have worked–if only director Shamata had dared to have fun.