Cameron Mackintosh is delighted to announce that award-winning actor and comedian Omid Djalili will be the next star to play ‘Fagin’ in Lionel Bart’s smash hit musical Oliver! at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane from Monday 20 July 2009. Jodie Prenger will continue to star as ‘Nancy’. Both Omid and Jodie are scheduled to appear until 12 December 2009. Rowan Atkinson’s show-stopping performance as Fagin can be seen until 18th July 2009.

Cameron Mackintosh said, “Oliver! has been a success beyond my wildest dreams and I’m thrilled that Rowan Atkinson has had such a tremendous triumph in a role I always thought he was born to play. The only way to follow such a unique performance is with a talent just as unique yet entirely different. No one could fulfil this criteria better than Omid Djalili. Omid started his career as an actor but was soon to become a major television star and one of the funniest comic actors and writers in Britain who regularly plays unforgettable cameos in movies. It is his ability to inhabit his characters with such comic energy and wily cunning that will make his Fagin his own.

Undoubtedly the first Iranian ever to portray Dicken’s legendry Jewish creation we all look forward to him becoming part of the family next July.”

Omid is probably best known as one of Britain’s funniest stand up comedians with many sell-out UK and international tours as well as critically acclaimed seasons at the Edinburgh Festival. He was most recently seen in his own show for BBC1, ‘The Omid Djalili Show’, which he both wrote and starred in. A second series transmits this April. In the United States he co-starred with Whoopi Goldberg in her sitcom “Whoopi” on NBC. He has appeared in numerous films including “The Mummy”, “Gladiator” and “Pirates of the Caribbean III”.

Since winning the role of Nancy through the BBC television series, ‘I’d Do Anything’, Jodie Prenger has appeared in the London production of Les Misérables and has won critical acclaim for her portrayal of Nancy in Oliver!

This production of Oliver! opened at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane on 14 January to rave reviews and is the biggest selling West End show of all time, with record-breaking advance sales.

The new booking period goes on sale on 23 February 2009 and Oliver! will be booking through to 27 February 2010. Some balcony seats and returns are available for performances before July, check the Box Office daily. Evening performances are Monday – Saturdays at 7.30pm, with matinees on Wednesdays and Saturdays at 2.30pm. Tickets are priced from £17.50 - £65 and are available from the Theatre Royal Drury Lane Box Office on 0844 412 2955 and online at www.oliverthemusical.com.