Ron Moody (left) with Lord Dahrendorf, 1975

"My proudest moment was the number Reviewing the Situation. I suspect that, because I gave my all to the role, and because I was working with such a fine team of people, it inhibited my future career. I turned down quite a few offers afterwards because I thought the people didn't come close to those I'd worked with on Oliver! which, in retrospect, was a mistake." – Ron Moody, 8 January 1924 – 11 June 2015.

Judi Herman reports on the recent death of actor Ron moody, one of the last remaining adult actors, bar Shani Wallis, from the 1968 musical Oliver!.

Readers will no doubt have heard a great deal over the last week about the long life of Ron Moody. Of course he is best known for his creation of Fagin, unforgettable for his gleeful physicality and for his musical phrasing. He relished rolling Bart’s delicious lyrics around his tongue, something I was lucky enough to experience live when I was not quite old enough to be in Fagin’s gang.

Much later on I went with Steve, my husband, to see him live in his one-man show at the also late-lamented Mermaid Theatre in London’s Puddle Dock. Doing a shtick about Hamlet, testing the audience's knowledge about Shakespeare’s play, he barked out the question: "Where did Hamlet live?" Moody had done a lot of stuff about the East End that night and before I could stop myself, I heard my voice yelling "Tower Hamlets!" After that there was no stopping Moody, he picked on me mercilessly for the next hour and I loved every minute of it (as did the rest of the audience). A true great, apparently sprightly right up to the end – he’ll be missed!