Pease pudding and saveloys - what next is the question?

Continuing my trip back through the 1961 album charts.

12/11/61 : Oliver! - Original Cast Recording

Having skipped over TSOM original cast recording in the last post, we come to another one that I suspect won't be as good as the film soundtrack - although somewhat surprisingly the Oliver! film soundtrack only charted for one week in '69 (compared with 372 weeks for TSOM, with 70 weeks at #1!).  I know I know some of the tracks, but I suspect it's not as many - I'm also expecting it to sound a bit dated.

Actually, I knew "Food, Glorious Food", "Oliver!", "Where Is Love?", "Consider Yourself". "You've Got To Pick A Pocket Or Two" (which possibly overplays a Jewish stereotype - or two), "As Long As He Needs Me" and "I'd Do Anything" - which is way more than I thought I knew.  I also didn't think it sounded quite as dated as I was expecting - I expect the common accents (which still sounded remarkably posh) stopped it being too operatic.  Also, unlike South Pacific, I also felt I had a vague idea as to what was going on - despite never actually having seen either the musical or the film.

We're at #7 in the charts this week on its 28th week of a 58 week run, with it having peaked at #4 - this was actually its third run and it's managed 91 weeks in all.  The top five this week were George (#1 and #4), Elvis, Cliff and The Shadows and there were no new entries in the chart this week.

Wikipedia doesn't have an entry on the album - mostly because there have been soooo many cast recordings.  And there are some very interesting characters involved in some of them - this one has Ron Moody as Fagin, who also played him in the film and in a couple of revivals in '83 and '84 (24 years after his first appearance) and Barry Humphries as Mr Sowerberry (whoever he is!).  Other people who have been involved in recordings or productions are Marti Webb, Oliver Reed, Harry Secombe, Leonard Rossiter, Stanley Holloway, Jim Dale, Jon Pertwee, Sheila Hancock, Roy Hudd, Russ Abbott, Ruthie Henshall, Patti LuPone, Jonathan Pryce, Gary Wilmott, Gryff Rhys Jones, Rowan Atkinson and Burn Gorman - it certainly has attracted some names over the years!  It also launched the career of Jodie Prenger as part of the BBC show I'd Do Anything - after which she played Nancy for a year in the West End.

"Customers also listened to" "no similar recommendations" which is probably due to the large number of Oliver! soundtrack albums out there - I got to twenty different ones on Amazon before I gave up counting.  I actually enjoyed this a lot more than I was expecting - it's got some very decent songs on it and it didn't sounded nearly as dated as it could have.

05/11/61 - Forgettably pleasant
19/11/61 - Entertaining and interesting

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