Phil Scott stars in a unique and perhaps the most successful show that he has produced to date.

Phil Scott is no stranger to cabaret festival audiences but this year’s festival sees him in something unique and perhaps within the most successful show that he has produced to date. With Reviewing the Situation, Scott and his director Terence O’Donnell, have moved on from the more locally topical review style with which we’ve associated him, a move which started with his last piece for Adelaide – a biographical piece on the popular tenor, Mario Lanza. With Reviewing the Situation, it’s now onto undoubtedly Britain’s most successful music theatre composer of the magical Sixties period, Lionel Bart’s (nee Begleiter) rags to riches and back again life, a composer of musicals best know for his adaptation of Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist, simply called Oliver! And it’s all too appropriate to present it as part of the Barry Humphries’ festival as he had Mr. Sowerberry in the original West End run.

Bart reached amazing heights for one who couldn’t read music. He’d whistle or sing and leave others to transcribe it into black notes on a stave. And even before Oliver! created a sensation, he’d...