Who else grew up humming “Food, Glorious Food”; “You’ve Gotta Pick a Pocket or Two”; “Consider Yourself”, and more? All are songs from Oliver!, a show that my generation (Gen X) and the following one (Millennials) in Egypt grew up attached to.
In frequent rotation on Channel Two (Al-Qanah al-Thaniya), the more foreign culture-oriented of the lone two channels on Egyptian television for much of the 1970s and 1980s, the musical found its way into the childhoods of countless Egyptians. The musical first premiered in London in 1960 and enjoyed a smash-hit performance on Broadway in 1963; but its supreme success, and international reach, was not until the 1968 film version, which is the version the aforementioned Egyptian generations grew up singing along with.
The decades between the glory days of Channel Two and today’s time of Netflix and TikTok – some thirty-odd years, from the late 1980s and early 1990s to the 2020s – arguably lacked the kind of universal crowd-pleasers that enthralled audiences worldwide and thrust them into the wholesale love of a particular franchise, with the notable exception of Disney and Pixar movies.
No longer was the entire world captivated by the simultaneous release of the newest TV series or musical that had everyone humming its tunes in the street. (Trivia: Mozart’s singers were forbidden from humming or singing “Non piu andrai” from The Marriage of Figaro outside the theatre for fear that the immensely catchy tune would be stolen.) Our group awareness splintered into YouTube channels, a variety of series from every quarter, and more artistic content for mass consumption than any one group could reasonably be expected to grasp at any one time. Indeed, for a time in the early aughties, “the death of live theatre” was declared by various critical voices, and the doomsayers have not yet tired of theorising that, sooner or later, live theatre will meet its end.
On the contrary, however, live theatre is very much alive and kicking. On the heels of a very energetic Egyptian theatre season throughout 2025, closing out the season – on Christmas Day, no less – is Fabrica’s performance of Oliver! in its Arabic-language premiere.
Fabrica, which has been running for some 15 years now, is a musical theatre organisation dedicated to showcasing Egyptian live performance and presenting musical theatre – original or translated – in Arabic. The organisation is owned and run by opera diva and vocal coach Neveen Allouba, who despite her foreign-language background and education, is passionate about presenting foreign operas in Egyptian Arabic and making them accessible to as wide an audience as possible.
While opera in Arabic can be traced as far back as Sayed Darwish, who composed operatic works for the stage complete with orchestration, and Salama Hegazi, whose work was less classically-oriented and more focused on the solo vocal artistry known in Arabic as tarab, the history of musical works translated specifically to be sung on stage is more recent. Abdel-Rahman Al-Khamisi’s mid-1960s Arabic version of The Merry Widow was only followed decades later by Ali Sadek’s translation of Mozart operas into Arabic, which premiered in 1991 at the Main Hall of the Cairo Opera House with The Marriage of Figaro in Arabic; CDs of this and Mozart’s major operas translated by Sadek were recorded three years earlier, in 1988, and are still available today.
The late, great Sayed Hegab, working with Neveen Allouba, produced an astounding, unparalleled translation of Bertolt Brecht’s and Kurt Weill’s Threepenny Opera, after which I had the good fortune to work with her on translations of Mozart’s The Magic Flute into Egyptian Arabic and the hit musical Les Miserables. Fabrica’s next production was a translation into Egyptian of I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change, by Fabrica singer and translator Serag Mahmoud, who collaborates with Passant Ayman (and also does an amazing, villainous turn as ‘Antar in Oliver).
This version of Oliver! is not only translated but Egyptianised: the events are transplanted from Victorian London to Egypt under the monarchy in the 1950s, a stylistic change that works well on several levels. One of the sources of Oliver’s charm is a kind of sentimental nostalgia – the sentimentality being part and parcel of the Dickensian style, while the nostalgia stems from portraying Victorian London in this day and age, from the 1960s until today. Setting Oliver in 1950s Egypt with its ragamuffins and street urchins in contrast to the Pashas and Beys of the upper-class at the time feels fundamentally more Dickensian, and above all safer in its remembrance to a bygone era, than it would be if it were transplanted into contemporary Cairo with the far harsher realities of how street children are exploited today.
Against the backdrop of our current reality of children being kidnapped, physically mutilated and sexually assaulted, such cheery numbers as “Pick a Pocket or Two” and sweet songs such as “Anything For You” would run the risk of seeming out of touch or disrespectful. But through the rose-coloured glasses of nostalgia for a time when Egypt was very different and the Egyptian stock exchange, thanks to cotton, dominated world markets, Fagin and his band of delinquents can be seen through a romantic lens.
Everything is given an Egyptian equivalent: the locations (Kasr Al-Nil Bridge, etc.), the foods (khobbeiza, etc.), the vocabulary and, notably, the names – the orphanage is run by Al-Daww, the villain becomes ‘Antar, and so on. The only name that remains the same is Oliver (played with consummate professionalism by Hassan Hawass on the night I was there: there are alternate casts for all the main roles), whose non-Egyptian moniker becomes a running gag as every single character takes a jab at the unusual name. In what I thought was an excellent throwaway line that functioned on more than one level, someone asked, “what kind of name is that, was he named after a British officer?” which, given that Oliver is revealed to have been an illegitimate child whose mother was cast out by her family, offers a tantalising hint to alert listeners that he might, indeed, have been fathered by a one.
The Artful Dodger is gender bent and becomes an adorable street-savvy character by the name of Soska, played with show-stopping verve and exceptional charisma by Sophia Hilal on the night I was there. Similarly, Fagin becomes Abdel-Bari (played with great gusto by Shadi Mohamed, who had the audience hanging on his every word) and so on for a deeply credible performance that rings true to its nostalgic theme. Some of the actors could have used a workshop on inhabiting a character, adding physical life, etc, and it showed; but this is a small gripe.
Passant Ayman and Serag Mahmoud’s translation is by and large smooth and singable, with an honourable mention to the first line of “Food, Glorious Food” which uses shoof, an Egyptian word with a similar ‘oo’ vowel to the original (I wonder whether they considered doo’ with its meaning of ‘taste’ instead of ‘see’). Occasionally a line will hit as too literal, but the translation is beautifully singable and was much beloved by the audience, who were full of enthusiasm.
The Egyptianisation extends to Ahmed Ismail’s stage set, a wonderfully versatile and minimalist bridge spanning the stage that does double duty as an elevated platform and a staircase, changing chameleon-like with great theatricality into a balcony, the upper floor of a building, and so on, depending on the needs of the scene in question, which meant that without elaborate set changes the design element could adapt imaginatively, with the versatility of a child’s toy changing from a broomstick to a hobby-horse to a firearm.
Which brings us to what is probably the most prominent element of this production: its childlike joy, embodied by a cast with dozens of children with a professional work ethic and performers’ discipline. Children in themselves – I freely admit to being a Scrooge, a Grinch, and whatever else you want to call me – don’t impress me. But a cast comprised mainly of children, acting, singing, and dancing well and professionally – honestly, with more professionalism than I have seen in some adult theatre companies, and with joy to boot – makes it hard to think of a better performance to treat yourself to this Christmas.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 11 December, 2025 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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