Cameron Mackintosh’s (or is it Matthew Bourne’s?) Oliver! — now at London’s Gielgud Theatre — has the aesthetics of Tommy Kail’s Sweeney Todd.

In the sense that both revivals lean in to their respective musicals’ operatic aspects, especially in regard to the form’s opulent spectacle (also, Oliver! and Sweeney began their lives as British serials published ten years apart in the mid-1800s). Perhaps to honor the bulk of opera history, neither revival relies heavily on projections, countering the contemporary norm for large-scale productions.

This Oliver!’s first sequence even feels like a nod to the production’s choice to go practical over computer. The lights come up on an impoverished lass lumbering up to a looming workhouse, a giant building seen only as a projection. And then, its digital gates swing open to reveal actual, bonafide set pieces.

So, in a way, the pixelated gates swing open to a stroll down memory lane, back not only to the era of Oliver!, but also to an era not defined by projections being more prominent than around the margins, as subtle finishes to the constructed tableaus.

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Every Broadway sound designer should emulate what they hear inside the Gielgud.

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Obviously Fagin — played here by Olivier-nominee Simon Lipkin — has always been intertwined with Jewishness, but this revival seems to emphasize his connections to Fiddler on the Roof’s Tevye: verbalizing his consciousness to God above, and singing a song about money centered around the question, “What do I do about my kids?!?”

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Annie is America’s Oliver!, two orphan musicals separated by the Atlantic Ocean.