Griff Rhys Jones to Play Fagin in Hit London Revival of Oliver!

Olivier Award winner Griff Rhys Jones has signed on to play Fagin in Cameron Mackintosh’s hit London revival of Oliver! He will join the production on December 14 and continue through June 2010 at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane, replacing current star Omid Djalili. Oliver! is directed by Rupert Goold and co-directed and choreographed by Matthew Bourne.

Best known for TV’s Not the Nine O’Clock News and Alias Smith and Jones, Rhys Jones won a double Olivier Award for Charley’s Aunt and An Absolute Turkey, starred in The Front Page at the Donmar Warehouse and Wind in the Willows at the National Theatre and was last seen on stage in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum at the 2001 Covent Garden Festival. Other TV work includes Three Men in a Boat, Restoration and Rivers With Griff Rhys Jones.

Oliver! also stars Jodie Prenger (who has extended through March 2010) as Nancy and Steve Hartley as Bill Sikes.

Featuring a cast and orchestra of more than 100, Goold and Bourne’s revival of Oliver! opened on January 14 to rave reviews with the biggest advance sales of all time for a West End show. A musical adaptation of Dickens' Oliver Twist, the show includes such beloved Lionel Bart songs as “Food Glorious Food,” “Consider Yourself,” “I'd Do Anything,” “Oom Pah Pah” and “As Long As He Needs Me.”