Steve Furst single-handedly takes on a variety of personas throughout the 200-year history of one of literature’s most controversial characters
Dubbed ‘The Jew’ 269 times in Charles Dickens’ original book of Oliver Twist, Fagin has since been perceived as a dangerous villain. In this two-hour analysis, which was written, directed and performed by Steve Furst, the audience embarks on a deep-dive of the character from page to stage, in a high-energy show that doesn’t once falter.
Bursting in with ‘You’ve Got to Pick a Pocket or Two’, the one-man-machine takes viewers back to Victorian Britain, when notorious Jewish ‘fence’ (a middleman who buys and sells stolen goods) Ikey Solomons helped create the assumption that all criminals are invariably Jews. We learn that, inspired by this preconception, Dickens built Fagin, the leader of a “gang of goys” – a group of orphaned boys who he trained to steal for him. The constant juxtaposition of times and characters emphasises the prevalence of antisemitism at the time. It was widely accepted that, because he was a rogue, Fagin was Jewish – but would this view be accepted today? And should it?
Furst morphs into various characters charting the development of the mastermind from 1867 to 2026, especially touching on illustrator George Cruikshank’s original depiction of Fagin as a ‘classic Jew’, with hunched over posture, hook nose and full beard. In the first half, we hear from journalists, authors and professors who analyse the Jew-hatred Dickens overtly expressed. In the second, when the line between Furst and Fagin begins to blur, the experiences of key players in the renowned 1960s musical Oliver! help to explore the crook’s contemporary redemption arc. These include actor Barry Humphries (who played Mr Sowerberry), director Peter Coe and, of course, playwright Lionel Bart, who defied Fagin’s death sentence by having him vow to change his unlawful ways.
