Lionel Bart: The rise and fall of a British musical emperor

In the early 1960s, Lionel Bart came to be regarded as the British stage’s answer to America’s 35-year-long supremacy in the field of musical comedy. No British composer/lyricist since the early prolific years of Noel Coward in the 1920s had so successfully and abundantly conveyed the English manner and style through the medium of musical comedy as well as Bart, who quickly climbed to phenomenal success. He was the first composer/lyricist ever to have three hit musicals playing simultaneously in London: Oliver!, Lock Up Your Daughters, and Blitz! And a fourth, Fings Ain’t Wot They Used T’Be, had only just recently closed after a very successful run.

In many respects, Bart’s beginnings resembled those of Broadway legend Irving Berlin. Both were born of lower-class Jewish families and rapidly fought their way, after changing their names, to the top rungs of success as songwriters without being able to read or write music in more than an elementary way. Like Berlin, Bart composed his tunes with one finger on a piano. But he also used a modern gadget unavailable to Berlin: a tape recorder, which he sang into and later played back to his arrangers.

The youngest of 12 children, Lionel Begleiter was born in London’s East End in 1930. His musical talent was recognized by teachers at an early age, but he was undisciplined and never learned to read or write musical notation. As he matured, his ambition was to become an artist. That goal was made more tangible when he won a scholarship to St. Martin’s School of Art. However, his stay there was short-lived. After a stint in the Royal Air Force, he joined the Unity Theatre, a left-wing theatrical club, in 1952. There he began his stage career as an understudy, scenic painter, and poster designer.

Now going by the name Lionel Bart, after London’s St Bartholomew’s Hospital (St. Bart’s), he contributed to four productions at the Unity. The first was the political revue Turn It Up. This was followed by the Unity’s version of Cinderella, in which Bart not only played one of the ugly stepsisters but also wrote some of the lyrics. By the third production, the revue Peacemeal, he was considered a writer in the company. The fourth, Wally Pone, a contemporary story set in London’s East End, was entirely Bart’s work. It was to be his last show at the Unity.

Around this time, Bart became a major player in the pop music scene. He was an original member of the group The Cavemen (so named because they played in the Cave Café near London’s Embankment). In 1956, Bart’s “Rock with the Cavemen” was the first hit for singer Tommy Steele and helped establish him as England’s premier pop star.
Bart’s pop-writing career then took off. In fact, for three years not a week went by without one of his songs reaching the top 20. His more notable offerings from this period included “A Handful of Songs” and “Butterfingers” for Steele and “Livin’ Doll” for Cliff Richard. In 1957, he won three Ivor Novello songwriting awards, a further four in 1958, and two more in 1960.

Bart’s successful pop career enabled him to continue with his first love, the theater. The Theatre Royal had a connection with the Unity Theatre and Bart was invited to write the music and lyrics for a show directed by Joan Littlewood (best known for Oh What a Lovely War) entitled Fings Ain’t Wot They Used T’Be. The 1959 work (in collaboration with book writer Frank Norman) was an immediate hit, and was followed up with an invitation that same year to work on the musical Lock Up Your Daughters, the premiere production of the newly established Mermaid Theatre. Laurie Johnson had already been commissioned to write the music, so it was Bart’s task to provide the lyrics. Again, this turned out to be a smash.

In the early sixties, Bart’s career went from strength to strength. In 1960, singer Anthony Newley had a No. 1 hit with Bart’s “Do You Mind,” while that same year saw the debut of Oliver!, Bart’s musical adaptation of the Charles Dickens novel Oliver Twist. The show was nominated for several Tony awards for its Broadway run, including Best Author of a Musical and Best Musical, and won Best Composer/Lyricist for Bart. The 1968 film version won several Oscars, most notably Best Picture.

Oliver! was followed by two relatively successful stage efforts: Blitz! (1962), a musical chronicling life in London during the Second World War, and Maggie May (1964), which was set during a Liverpool dock strike.

His good fortune seemed to end with Twang!, a musical based on the life of Robin Hood, which was crucified by the critics during its brief London run in 1965. Four years later, an effort called La Strada closed on its opening night in New York. Bart used his own money to prop up both of these floundering shows and consequently lost much of what he had earned in his career. Worse still, during this time he sold the rights to his past works to keep himself solvent – including those of Oliver! (to Cameron Mackintosh) – only to end up in bankruptcy in 1972.

With producers unwilling to take on new productions, Bart finished the decade growing increasingly dependent on alcohol and spiraling into depression. He recovered in later years but eventually succumbed to cancer in April 1999 at the age of 68.