Reviewed by Barry Lenny, Saturday 20th June 2015
Reviewing the Situation is one of Fagin's songs from the multi-award winning musical, Oliver!, written by
Lionel Bart. Written by Phil Scott and Terence O'Connell, performed by Scott, as
Lionel Bart, and directed by O'Connell, the title is equally appropriate to the content of the performance as
Lionel Bart look back over his life and career.
Lionel Bart is broke, ill, and living in a run down flat in Acton above a Laundromat, furnished with his piano, table and chair, and a bottle of Tanqueray gin. At this stage in his life his health and talent have deserted him, the alcohol having a lot to do with it, along with his overly generous lifestyle and love of partying.
Born Lionel Begleiter (1 August 1930 - 3 April 1999), he was the youngest child of a Jewish family who had escaped the Hungarian Cossacks. He grew up in Stepney in East London, where his father worked as a tailor. It was 1950 when he changed his name, as many people in show business did back then.
His songs were recorded by many of the big names, including
Alma Cogan,
Georgia Brown,
Tommy Steele, and
Cliff Richard. His tunes were catchy and very profitable for Bart and for those who recorded them.
Tommy Steele appeared in the film, Tommy the Toreador, and the song,
Little White Bull, was a great favourite with young audiences. It was also the first song that I sang in public, as an early teenager, at a talent contest. Thanks, Lionel and Tommy.
He did this without being able to read or write music, and would hum the tunes for somebody else to transcribe them for him. He admitted that this had held him back and wished he had studied.
He hoped to have a success like that of Oliver! with a new musical based on Robin Hood, called Twang!! It was a disaster, and the cast renamed it early in the rehearsal period as Kwap!! La Strada, that he wrote a few years later, went the same way. It closed after one night.
Always the good host, Bart invites the audience in, dismissing the squalor with a brief apology. He proceeds to tell his story from his childhood, through his period of writing pop songs and then to musicals, his life of luxury, and his decline. A central part of his life was spent at his lavish Chelsea home, which he called the 'Fun Palace', and which was visited by everybody who was anybody, and he dropped a few names.
Scott is a very accomplished pianist and also absorbs himself completely into his characterisation of Bart, jovially and exuberantly entertaining his friends, the audience. Recalling the good times, he introduces a number of tunes from Oliver!, his biggest success. Fings Ain't Wot They Used to Be, was another of his hit musicals, and the title tune was given Scott's treatment before detailing his method of composing, using a transcriber, and how she tried to claim that she had written the songs for Oliver, and for another show, Blitz!
Scott is simply marvellous as
Lionel Bart, recounting anecdotes, talking of his friends, from Princess Margaret to Nöel Coward, of his successes and failures, his ups and downs, his addiction to alcohol, and other substances, and his ailing health. His piano arrangements are superb, too. The time flew past all too quickly and left us wanting more, which is the best way to finish a performance.
