and That Brilliantly

Jewish Telegraph Jewish Telegraph 74 FEATURES | Friday September 19, 2014 Friday September 19, 2014 | FEATURES 75 The show will be subtitled ‘The Misadventure of Robin Hood’.” � HERBERT’S THREE INTERVIEWS WITH OLIVER! WRITER SHOWS LIONEL’S RISE AND DRAMATIC FALL WITH TWANG!! Mr Bart and I took lunch in his spacious study. Between courses NEWS EXTRA he threw back his dark, earnest hood remain with him. These are head and sang me a couple of the things he has poured into numbers from Twang!! Blitz! The first song was titled Lock- “I wanted to do something par- smith For The Lady, and will be ticularly British. Something that sung by a line of leggy girls owes nothing to American influ- encased in iron chastity belts by Bart: Jews need approval ence. What I remember of the war their husbands, who have gone off - and that to the Crusades. is the wonderful blitz spirit. It didn’t matter if you were Jewish, The main burden of the song is or black or yellow. You had one concerned with the determina- common enemy. tion of the lonesome wives to “You laughed at the same jokes. secure the services of a locksmith You sang the same songs. It to liberate them from their frus- shouldn’t be necessary to have trations. bombs dropped on our heads Mr Bart followed up with is why they entertain so brilliantly before we learn to live with each another song in which the wives, other and love each other. I hope now emancipated and unlocked, Blitz! says that. I think it does. sing a ditty proclaiming their of needing to be approved of, than man who dearly loves to see his ✭ immediate availability. BEST known as the award-winning lyricist of Les minority groups like Jews and name in the papers. The title of this song is self- Blitz! had a respectable, but hard- explanatory: Thou Hath It Made. Miserables and Charles Aznavour’s hit She, negroes. That is why they make Not one in 10,000, I suppose, ly sensational, run of 568 perfor- such brilliant entertainers. They could name the writers of Irma La Both songs were pithy, wittily mances. It contained no outstanding rhymed, and promise well for the HERBERT KRETZMER has had an equally need all that approval, all the Douce or Espresso Bongo or The hit songs and is seldom revived. applause. rest of Twang!! Music Man (all musicals running ✭ noteworthy career in journalism. Snapshots: “It’s a kind of love, isn’t it? in the West End at the time). But “What we are doing in Twang!!,” March 6, 1965 LINK-UP: Robert Weiner People like me who come from everybody has heard of Lionel said Mr Bart, “is to satirise the Encounters with Twentieth Century Legends Songwriter Lionel Bart is the gutters of the East End, we Bart. Crusades, the attitude of the about to write a musical based on Church and, above all, human (The Robson Press, £25) brings together some haven’t got time for all that sur- The buzz is not always compli- the legend of Robin Hood. The gullibility, which can turn an out- face chi-chi like Salad Days (a mentary. Bart has something of a of his interviews. The book features his musical about a magic piano by show will not follow the party lawed con man like Robin Hood Alliance reputation for conceit and arro- line about the merry outlaws of into some kind of heroic saint. Julian Slade). We have seen too gance. Bart is not unaware of encounters with Matt Busby, Spike Milligan, Leni much that is real.” Sherwood Forest. this. “Personally, I find con men very Bart now plans to go into hiber- “It is going to be a naughty colourful,” he allowed. “They are, Riefenstahl, Peter Sellers, Walt Disney and Billy Wilder, to name a “Man, what do they expect me will allow nation for a year. His major pro- show,” Lionel Bart told me in con- and have to be, chameleon char- few. Here, we reproduce three interviews with musical writer ject for the next year is a massive to do? I can’t be a nice guy to the spiratorial tones. acters, and that is very good the- folk opera, conceived on the scale whole world. I can’t recognise “A very naughty show. Robin atrically.” Lionel Bart in 1960, 1961 and 1965. everybody in the street. I have no movements to of Porgy and Bess, which will Hood is a con man, Maid Marian a Robin will be played by James delusions of grandeur. describe the life of London’s East nympho and Little John an abject Booth, veteran of con men roles. “I was happier when I was playing a triumphant invasion of the End under bomb fire. “I’m not an intellectual like coward. You might describe it as Twang!! is being written in a hur- ‘speak with washboard for Tommy Steele.” London stage for the third time The show, ready in 1961, will be Peter Ustinov. I’m just a simple a satirical girlie show that is defi- ry. Mr Bart started work on songs in 1960 with the opening of Oliver!, called quite simply Blitz! guy. They just don’t know what nitely not for the family trade.” ORN Lionel Begleit- a musical based on Dickens’ Oliv- Bart writes songs with remark- the pressures are.” I was talking to Mr Bart in his er Twist, for which Bart wrote the er in 1930, youngest able speed (maximum time per ARROGANT: Lionel Bart Another attitude towards Bart newly acquired house off the Ful- one voice’ of eight children of book, music and lyrics. song: 60 minutes), but claims that seeks to nail him as a copy-cat ham Road — a rambling, 25- I find con THE Movement for Reform an Austrian Jewish He lives today in a plush mews he needs days and months, even Blitz!, he told me, was the composer. A Bart tune, say his roomed mansion with minstrel Judaism is creating an alliance house near the South Kensington years, of thinking the song out biggest thing he had ever critics, is an old tune tricked up galleries, carved stonework and with Liberal Judaism. tailor, he grew up in tube station (which he never uses) to sound new. men very BStepney, London. before he reaches the point of cre- attempted. stained-glass windows, not to The link-up will allow them to and has found solace in the own- ation. He would not describe him- Bart says, “Listen, mate. Fings mention a hand-painted mural of “speak under one voice,” accord- His youthful ambition was to ership of expensive automobiles. “The story covers, like, the self as a happy person. whole canvas of the German air is deliberately derivative of the the Battle of Agincourt, and sev- colourful ing to MRJ chairman Robert be a painter, but a natural, I called to see him at his home “I was happier,” he said, “when I raids on the East End,” he said. Thirties. And Blitz! will be delib- en lavatories, one of them done up Weiner. unforced talent for popular some hours before the curtain erately based on the musical as a panelled throne room. melody soon revealed itself. was playing washboard for Tom- “It takes place in the Under- a fortnight ago. He says he will “This is a big opportunity in went up on the first night of Oliv- my Steele in the early days, and mood of the Forties. The wartime “I’m on a big medieval kick,” not only appealing to all our He wrote the early hits of Cliff ground shelters and in Petticoat have the entire first draft of the er! He was extremely nervous loafin’ around Soho with 15 bob in songs . You’ve got yourself a Mr Bart explained. “Both my next members, but also to the unaffil- Richard, Tommy Steele and Lane. The leading lady is a big show written in another week or about the prospects of the show. my pocket.” good popular song when the audi- two musicals are set in medieval iated,” he said. “We can offer a Anthony Newley. In 1959 he wrote Cockney Jewish mama. two. “I tell you straight, mate,” he ence can almost feel the next times. First, the Robin Hood bit. more compelling and meaning- the lyrics (to Laurie Johnson’s Now when he sits in his £4,250 “I already got someone in mind. “In one single night last week I said. “If anything goes wrong on note, the next lyric. I want my Then a massive spectacular about ful message.” music) of the Mermaid Theatre’s Mercedes Benz convertible (regis- Real matriarchal. She’ll be wild.” wrote❝ four new songs. That’s the the stage tonight, I’m going to songs to sound familiar.” the Hunchback of Notre Dame in inaugural production Lock Up tration plate LB 4), Lionel Bart way it comes sometimes, in a The alliance will see an walk out of the theatre and wan- knows that he has come a long The story goes back to Bart’s By adhering to such simple which every line of the dialogue Your Daughters. kind of flood. I can’t always write expansion of collaboration der around Trafalgar Square way. But he knows something own roots. Born within a shout of rules, Bart has made a fortune. will be sung by up to 100 voices. between the two movements in Bigger things were to follow . music that way, of course; I have until it’s all over.” else too, that at 27 he is just Petticoat Lane, he was a 10-year- He says he cannot estimate his “There will be,” Bart added as areas such as student chaplaincy, ✭ Eleven hours later Bart stood beginning.

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