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This programme contains some strong language | 0:00:02 | 0:00:09 | |
In the late 1950s and early '60s one British songwriter | 0:00:09 | 0:00:11 | |
dominated the pop charts and the West End stage - | 0:00:11 | 0:00:14 | |
the impossibly glamorous Lionel Bart. | 0:00:14 | 0:00:16 | |
I mean, he was | 0:00:17 | 0:00:18 | |
Britain's greatest tunesmith. | 0:00:18 | 0:00:22 | |
He's one of the few guys who married pop and theatre. | 0:00:22 | 0:00:26 | |
He said, "Cam, remember the magic of my music | 0:00:26 | 0:00:30 | |
"is between the notes, it's not on the notes." | 0:00:30 | 0:00:32 | |
He wrote Living Doll for Cliff, | 0:00:32 | 0:00:36 | |
Little White Bull for Tommy, | 0:00:36 | 0:00:38 | |
From Russia With Love for Bond and... | 0:00:38 | 0:00:41 | |
# Ba-ba, ba-ba, | 0:00:41 | 0:00:43 | |
# That's how it goes... | 0:00:43 | 0:00:45 | |
Oliver, the best British musical ever. | 0:00:45 | 0:00:48 | |
# They all suppose... # | 0:00:48 | 0:00:50 | |
Then at the height of his fame | 0:00:50 | 0:00:52 | |
he crashed down to earth with a bang. | 0:00:52 | 0:00:55 | |
Hubris and extravagance brought bankruptcy | 0:00:55 | 0:00:57 | |
and alcoholism followed eventually by a modest bounce back. | 0:00:57 | 0:01:02 | |
A tale, then, of ambition, triumph, ruin and redemption, | 0:01:03 | 0:01:07 | |
Greek tragedy with tighter trousers and catchier tunes. | 0:01:07 | 0:01:12 | |
He was just the most wonderful character, he really was. | 0:01:12 | 0:01:15 | |
We all had great affection for him, the public did, | 0:01:15 | 0:01:18 | |
and the more into trouble he got the more they seemed to love him. | 0:01:18 | 0:01:22 | |
Impossible. | 0:01:22 | 0:01:23 | |
Extraordinary. | 0:01:23 | 0:01:24 | |
Irrepressible. | 0:01:24 | 0:01:26 | |
He was my uncle. | 0:01:26 | 0:01:28 | |
He was a good man. | 0:01:28 | 0:01:29 | |
A mentsh. | 0:01:29 | 0:01:30 | |
# If the kids get chickenpox | 0:01:37 | 0:01:40 | |
# They catch it | 0:01:40 | 0:01:43 | |
# If they're growing out their socks | 0:01:43 | 0:01:46 | |
# They catch it | 0:01:46 | 0:01:47 | |
# If the cost of living... | 0:01:49 | 0:01:51 | |
Lionel Bart was born Lionel Begleiter in 1930 | 0:01:51 | 0:01:54 | |
in the East End of London, | 0:01:54 | 0:01:56 | |
then as now one of the poorest | 0:01:56 | 0:01:59 | |
and liveliest areas of Britain. | 0:01:59 | 0:02:00 | |
# The rent you haven't paid | 0:02:00 | 0:02:03 | |
# They catch it... # | 0:02:03 | 0:02:05 | |
There were kosher butchers, | 0:02:06 | 0:02:08 | |
someone taking the feathers out of kosher chickens, | 0:02:08 | 0:02:12 | |
the woman saying, "Two a penny bagels, | 0:02:12 | 0:02:15 | |
" Two a penny bagels," | 0:02:15 | 0:02:17 | |
all this Jewish life going on all over the place. | 0:02:17 | 0:02:20 | |
Synagogues everywhere, | 0:02:20 | 0:02:23 | |
shows everywhere in Yiddish | 0:02:23 | 0:02:25 | |
and it was a hubbub of noise and music. | 0:02:25 | 0:02:30 | |
The Begleiters were a big, noisy, Jewish family. | 0:02:34 | 0:02:38 | |
Lionel's mother, Yetta, was a sturdy mama, | 0:02:38 | 0:02:41 | |
a whirlwind who rarely left the kitchen. | 0:02:41 | 0:02:44 | |
His dad, Maurice, was a tailor. | 0:02:44 | 0:02:46 | |
They had seven children. | 0:02:46 | 0:02:48 | |
The youngest by a long chalk, | 0:02:48 | 0:02:50 | |
"the last shake of the bag" as his dad put it, | 0:02:50 | 0:02:52 | |
was Lionel. | 0:02:52 | 0:02:54 | |
All his life he had to have noise. | 0:02:54 | 0:02:56 | |
When you went to Lionel's house he'd have a television on there, | 0:02:56 | 0:03:00 | |
a radio on here, a radio on there. | 0:03:00 | 0:03:02 | |
It used to drive me crazy, | 0:03:02 | 0:03:04 | |
but he had to have noise because he'd always had noise. | 0:03:04 | 0:03:07 | |
The brothers and sisters all yelling for attention. He was the baby. | 0:03:07 | 0:03:11 | |
CHILDREN SHOUT | 0:03:11 | 0:03:14 | |
Hoping to turn him into the next Yehudi Menuhin, | 0:03:14 | 0:03:17 | |
Lionel's dad bought him a violin and signed him up for lessons. | 0:03:17 | 0:03:21 | |
His mum called the fiddle the "wailing cat" | 0:03:21 | 0:03:24 | |
and binned it the second Lionel lost interest. | 0:03:24 | 0:03:27 | |
And that was the end of his formal musical education. | 0:03:27 | 0:03:31 | |
GEORGE FORMBY: # The other night a loving couple courting close to me... | 0:03:32 | 0:03:36 | |
The informal education never stopped, though. | 0:03:36 | 0:03:40 | |
At home the wireless pumped out light classics, novelty songs, | 0:03:40 | 0:03:44 | |
big bands, crooners and the great American show tunes | 0:03:44 | 0:03:47 | |
of Cole Porter, Rodgers and Hart and the Gershwins. | 0:03:47 | 0:03:51 | |
BIG-BAND MUSIC PLAYS | 0:03:51 | 0:03:55 | |
There were street songs, mucky playground chants, | 0:03:55 | 0:03:59 | |
music hall favourites, | 0:03:59 | 0:04:01 | |
and the sounds of the synagogue. | 0:04:01 | 0:04:03 | |
Lionel soaked it all up like a sponge. | 0:04:05 | 0:04:08 | |
SINGING | 0:04:08 | 0:04:11 | |
You're brought up in a certain way and certain events take place | 0:04:11 | 0:04:15 | |
and if you go to synagogue, | 0:04:15 | 0:04:17 | |
it's full of great musical tunes. | 0:04:17 | 0:04:20 | |
And they absolutely stay with you and you can't get rid of them. | 0:04:20 | 0:04:24 | |
If you said to him, "you know... | 0:04:24 | 0:04:27 | |
HE PLAYS A SCALE | 0:04:27 | 0:04:30 | |
..You know where you are. | 0:04:30 | 0:04:32 | |
You're in the Jewish world there, just with that scale. | 0:04:32 | 0:04:35 | |
And that's the beginning for Fagin. | 0:04:41 | 0:04:44 | |
# A man's got a heart, hasn't he? # | 0:04:44 | 0:04:46 | |
Again a mix of minor | 0:04:46 | 0:04:48 | |
which is always in the Jewish, um, melody... | 0:04:48 | 0:04:52 | |
..To major. | 0:04:55 | 0:04:56 | |
# A man's got a heart, hasn't he? # | 0:04:56 | 0:04:59 | |
It gives that hope question. Joking apart. | 0:04:59 | 0:05:02 | |
# Hasn't he? | 0:05:02 | 0:05:03 | |
# And though I'd be the first one to say | 0:05:03 | 0:05:06 | |
# That I wasn't a saint... # | 0:05:06 | 0:05:08 | |
The soundtrack of his childhood would never leave Lionel, | 0:05:08 | 0:05:12 | |
but for now destiny took him far from the East End. | 0:05:12 | 0:05:15 | |
Well, a bus ride away anyway. | 0:05:15 | 0:05:17 | |
At school he was described as an artistic genius | 0:05:17 | 0:05:20 | |
and showed a genuine talent for painting and drawing. | 0:05:20 | 0:05:24 | |
He was so good that at the age of 13 he won a scholarship to | 0:05:24 | 0:05:27 | |
St Martins School of Art in the West End of London. | 0:05:27 | 0:05:31 | |
There he was introduced to nude models, aerial perspective, | 0:05:31 | 0:05:35 | |
mohair sweaters and, best of all, a new spiritual home. | 0:05:35 | 0:05:39 | |
JAZZ MUSIC PLAYS | 0:05:39 | 0:05:42 | |
Soho. | 0:05:42 | 0:05:45 | |
JAZZ MUSIC PLAYS | 0:05:45 | 0:05:47 | |
In the grey post-war world | 0:05:47 | 0:05:49 | |
Soho was the most exciting place in Britain. | 0:05:49 | 0:05:52 | |
Crime, coloured shirts, foreign food, | 0:05:52 | 0:05:55 | |
jazz and sex all lived in Soho | 0:05:55 | 0:05:58 | |
and it was where common kids like Lionel | 0:05:58 | 0:06:00 | |
felt that they too could be part of something worth doing. | 0:06:00 | 0:06:05 | |
People were filled with ideas, | 0:06:05 | 0:06:07 | |
it was very exciting for young people. | 0:06:07 | 0:06:09 | |
Also what's forgotten is that | 0:06:09 | 0:06:12 | |
the radical Attlee government of '45 | 0:06:12 | 0:06:15 | |
had created what the snobs called the red brick universities | 0:06:15 | 0:06:19 | |
and they were now pouring out writers, poets, | 0:06:19 | 0:06:24 | |
musicians, songwriters. | 0:06:24 | 0:06:26 | |
It was a very, very exciting time to be alive. | 0:06:26 | 0:06:29 | |
After National Service in the late 1940s, | 0:06:29 | 0:06:32 | |
Lionel set up a printing business with a mate, John Gorman, | 0:06:32 | 0:06:36 | |
but at night Soho was still his manor. | 0:06:36 | 0:06:38 | |
He was a "face". | 0:06:38 | 0:06:41 | |
He hung out in coffee bars and dreamed | 0:06:41 | 0:06:43 | |
and schemed of making his first million. | 0:06:43 | 0:06:45 | |
His musical antenna, finely tuned to the zeitgeist, | 0:06:48 | 0:06:51 | |
tingled when he heard this. | 0:06:51 | 0:06:53 | |
MUSIC: "Shake Rattle and roll" by Bill Haley and His Comets. | 0:06:53 | 0:07:00 | |
Rock'n'roll hit British jukeboxes at the end of 1954. | 0:07:02 | 0:07:06 | |
To the old and tired it sounded like the end of civilisation. | 0:07:06 | 0:07:10 | |
To the young and hip it was a call to arms. | 0:07:10 | 0:07:14 | |
MUSIC: "Rock Island Line" by Lonnie Donegan. | 0:07:14 | 0:07:19 | |
Rock'n'roll had a hell of an impact. | 0:07:19 | 0:07:21 | |
It had an excitement about it which has never been quite like that since, | 0:07:21 | 0:07:26 | |
apart from the Beatles. | 0:07:26 | 0:07:28 | |
I can remember the jukeboxes playing at night-time | 0:07:28 | 0:07:31 | |
moving down the streets there, listening to them and it was great. | 0:07:31 | 0:07:35 | |
It was a great feeling. | 0:07:35 | 0:07:36 | |
When the 2Is coffee bar in Old Compton Street | 0:07:42 | 0:07:44 | |
turned its cellar into a music venue | 0:07:44 | 0:07:47 | |
Lionel, the Soho face, | 0:07:47 | 0:07:48 | |
was one of the first through the door. | 0:07:48 | 0:07:50 | |
ROCK'N'ROLL MUSIC PLAYS | 0:07:50 | 0:07:52 | |
Everybody went to the 2Is. | 0:07:52 | 0:07:55 | |
It was a fantastic atmosphere. | 0:07:55 | 0:07:57 | |
I met Lionel Bart in the flesh. | 0:07:57 | 0:07:59 | |
I think he looked what I would have called Bohemian. | 0:07:59 | 0:08:02 | |
He had sandals and thongs. | 0:08:02 | 0:08:04 | |
Remember those sandals that wrapped round the bottom of your leg, | 0:08:04 | 0:08:08 | |
a bit like a Roman centurion, I remember those. | 0:08:08 | 0:08:11 | |
Lionel was never someone who could just be a spectator. | 0:08:11 | 0:08:15 | |
He first talked the 2Is management into letting him decorate | 0:08:15 | 0:08:19 | |
the place with arty murals | 0:08:19 | 0:08:20 | |
then he formed a band and wrote a song. | 0:08:20 | 0:08:23 | |
# The old-time cave dweller lived in a cave | 0:08:23 | 0:08:26 | |
# Here's what he did when he wanted a rave | 0:08:26 | 0:08:27 | |
# He took a stick and he drew on the wall | 0:08:27 | 0:08:30 | |
# Man, a fellah had to settle for | 0:08:30 | 0:08:32 | |
# Rock with the caveman | 0:08:32 | 0:08:33 | |
# Shake with the caveman | 0:08:33 | 0:08:35 | |
# Shake with the caveman... # | 0:08:35 | 0:08:37 | |
Rock With The Caveman was Lionel's first hit, | 0:08:37 | 0:08:41 | |
kick-starting the career of his friend Tommy Steele. | 0:08:41 | 0:08:44 | |
Here we go. | 0:08:44 | 0:08:45 | |
# C-A-V-E | 0:08:45 | 0:08:47 | |
# Cavema-a-a-an! # | 0:08:47 | 0:08:52 | |
Tommy was Britain's first home-grown rock'n'roll idol. | 0:08:54 | 0:08:57 | |
His rise was so meteoric that just two years later | 0:08:57 | 0:09:00 | |
at the venerable age of 21 | 0:09:00 | 0:09:02 | |
he was looking back on it on This Is Your Life. | 0:09:02 | 0:09:05 | |
"We called ourselves The Cavemen." | 0:09:05 | 0:09:07 | |
Lionel Bart. | 0:09:07 | 0:09:09 | |
Yes, it is, one of the members of the original group. | 0:09:09 | 0:09:11 | |
Lionel Bart, come in. | 0:09:11 | 0:09:13 | |
APPLAUSE | 0:09:13 | 0:09:18 | |
Lionel, you tell me what was the story of The Cavemen? | 0:09:18 | 0:09:21 | |
Well, it all began in this basement, the cave, | 0:09:21 | 0:09:24 | |
that's where we first met, where I first met Tommy. | 0:09:24 | 0:09:27 | |
And we all got together and together with another chap called Mike Pratt | 0:09:27 | 0:09:31 | |
we formed this group called The Cavemen. | 0:09:31 | 0:09:33 | |
Come in, Mike Pratt. | 0:09:33 | 0:09:34 | |
APPLAUSE | 0:09:34 | 0:09:38 | |
# I've got a handful of songs to sing you | 0:09:41 | 0:09:46 | |
# Can't stop my voice when it longs... # | 0:09:46 | 0:09:48 | |
Lionel and Mike Pratt became Tommy's chief songwriters, | 0:09:48 | 0:09:53 | |
turning out material for his first three films which yielded | 0:09:53 | 0:09:57 | |
a clutch of hit singles. | 0:09:57 | 0:09:58 | |
# There was a little white bull | 0:09:58 | 0:10:02 | |
# Very sad because he was a little white bull | 0:10:02 | 0:10:05 | |
# Little white bull... # | 0:10:05 | 0:10:07 | |
The secret of a hit song, I suppose, | 0:10:10 | 0:10:13 | |
is people know the next note coming up and almost the next word coming up. | 0:10:13 | 0:10:17 | |
But you surprise them here and there | 0:10:17 | 0:10:21 | |
with the wrong word and the wrong note, | 0:10:21 | 0:10:23 | |
but then you get back to what they feel familiar with. | 0:10:23 | 0:10:26 | |
It's not studied, it's instinctive, isn't it, really? | 0:10:28 | 0:10:32 | |
# Butterfingers...# | 0:10:32 | 0:10:38 | |
Lionel's songwriting facility was | 0:10:39 | 0:10:41 | |
noticed by Larry Morris Parnes, Tommy Steele's first manager. | 0:10:41 | 0:10:46 | |
At his Kensington flat, | 0:10:47 | 0:10:49 | |
Mr Parnes was grooming a small stable of young men for rock stardom. | 0:10:49 | 0:10:52 | |
What perplexes a lot of people is that no training seems to be | 0:10:54 | 0:10:58 | |
-needed for success. -I would disagree with you. My boys are not untrained. | 0:10:58 | 0:11:04 | |
A lot of them are natural and have natural ability, | 0:11:04 | 0:11:08 | |
but they do train themselves as they go along. | 0:11:08 | 0:11:10 | |
The boys, Duffy Power, Vince Eager, Billy Fury, Marty Wilde, | 0:11:13 | 0:11:18 | |
were equipped with the best. | 0:11:18 | 0:11:20 | |
Names by Mr Parnes, shoes by Saxone, trousers by Vince of Newburgh Street | 0:11:20 | 0:11:26 | |
and songs, of course by Lionel Bart. | 0:11:26 | 0:11:30 | |
# Just because I can't tame you I don't suppose I can blame you. # | 0:11:33 | 0:11:38 | |
Larry fixed up a meeting so I could write the song | 0:11:38 | 0:11:42 | |
and I thought there would be a grand piano | 0:11:42 | 0:11:44 | |
and he would sit down and go... "Maybe we will do this." | 0:11:44 | 0:11:48 | |
Play a boogie-woogie or something. But it wasn't like that at all. | 0:11:48 | 0:11:52 | |
I came into his flat and there was a keyboard and it had little | 0:11:52 | 0:11:58 | |
bits of paper stuck on all the notes, with numbers on, right the way up. | 0:11:58 | 0:12:02 | |
And I thought, "Well, this is really strange." But that is how he wrote. | 0:12:03 | 0:12:09 | |
That's how he was getting really good melody lines. | 0:12:09 | 0:12:13 | |
# I'm too young to live in sorrow. # | 0:12:13 | 0:12:21 | |
# So if I shower you with kisses | 0:12:21 | 0:12:25 | |
# If I tell you, honey, this is...# | 0:12:25 | 0:12:29 | |
Using the composition by numbers technique, Lionel provided songs for | 0:12:29 | 0:12:34 | |
Adam Faith, Anthony Newly, Frankie Vaughan, Shane Fenton and Joe Brown. | 0:12:34 | 0:12:40 | |
Single-handedly inventing what was later called cockney rock. | 0:12:40 | 0:12:44 | |
Saturday morning, what do I get? Kids. Nippers. All round my stall... | 0:12:44 | 0:12:49 | |
He was the unknown history of British pop music, really, | 0:12:51 | 0:12:54 | |
it didn't all start with the Beatles and the Kinks. | 0:12:54 | 0:12:57 | |
I see influences in Blur, with Blur's music, a lot from Lionel Bart. | 0:12:57 | 0:13:03 | |
Particularly Parklife. There's a direct link between Phil Daniels' | 0:13:03 | 0:13:09 | |
vocal on Parklife and Lionel Bart's songwriting. | 0:13:09 | 0:13:13 | |
His biggest hit, Lionel often claimed, was written in ten minutes, | 0:13:21 | 0:13:25 | |
inspired by an ad in the back of the Sunday Pictorial. | 0:13:25 | 0:13:29 | |
It made its debut in a movie showcasing a newcomer | 0:13:29 | 0:13:31 | |
Lionel had spotted at the Two I's. | 0:13:31 | 0:13:34 | |
Cliff Richard. | 0:13:34 | 0:13:35 | |
# I'll do my best to please her She's a livin' doll...# | 0:13:38 | 0:13:42 | |
TUNE IS PLUCKED ON GUITAR | 0:13:43 | 0:13:45 | |
The first time we had Living Doll it was almost like a... HE SINGS THE TUNE | 0:13:47 | 0:13:52 | |
that sort of like an Elvis type thing. | 0:13:52 | 0:13:55 | |
It was trying to be like an English rock record. | 0:13:55 | 0:13:58 | |
# Oh, take a look at her hair...# | 0:13:58 | 0:14:03 | |
Cliff and The Drifters, as we were then, were on tour and Cliff | 0:14:03 | 0:14:07 | |
came in and said "They want a single, from the movie." | 0:14:07 | 0:14:11 | |
And I just got my guitar, for some reason I said, | 0:14:11 | 0:14:15 | |
why don't we do it like this. | 0:14:15 | 0:14:17 | |
# Got myself cryin', talkin', sleepin', walkin' | 0:14:17 | 0:14:21 | |
# Livin' doll. # | 0:14:21 | 0:14:23 | |
# Got to do my best to please her, just cos she's a livin' doll | 0:14:23 | 0:14:31 | |
# Got a rovin' eye and...# | 0:14:31 | 0:14:34 | |
It's a great craftsman at work here. | 0:14:34 | 0:14:36 | |
It looks effortless but as Irving Berlin | 0:14:36 | 0:14:40 | |
used to say, the simplest things are the hardest to write. | 0:14:40 | 0:14:43 | |
And Lionel Bart had that looseness about him, | 0:14:43 | 0:14:47 | |
that swagger about his lyrics as well. | 0:14:47 | 0:14:50 | |
Looking at the man, looking at the lyrics, they are one and the same. | 0:14:50 | 0:14:54 | |
# Got myself a cryin', talkin', sweepin', walkin', living doll. # | 0:14:54 | 0:15:01 | |
Living Doll, more than 50 years later, is still the one | 0:15:03 | 0:15:06 | |
Cliff's fans scream for. | 0:15:06 | 0:15:09 | |
# Got a rovin' eye and that is why she satisfies my soul | 0:15:09 | 0:15:17 | |
# Got the one and only, walkin', talkin', living doll. # | 0:15:17 | 0:15:24 | |
APPLAUSE | 0:15:24 | 0:15:27 | |
Living Doll was Lionel's and Cliff's first number one. | 0:15:30 | 0:15:34 | |
It proved that Lionel could do pop standing on his head | 0:15:34 | 0:15:37 | |
but as he said many times, his real passion was never for pop. | 0:15:37 | 0:15:41 | |
It was for musical theatre. | 0:15:41 | 0:15:43 | |
As a child, his parents had taken him to Yiddish theatre. | 0:15:44 | 0:15:48 | |
As a teenager, his older sister had taken him to the West End | 0:15:51 | 0:15:56 | |
and classic American musicals. | 0:15:56 | 0:15:58 | |
She had also introduced him to the Communist Party and to Unity, | 0:16:00 | 0:16:05 | |
Britain's first radical theatre company. | 0:16:05 | 0:16:08 | |
Its noble aim was nothing less than the overthrow of capitalism | 0:16:08 | 0:16:12 | |
through drama, revue and song. | 0:16:12 | 0:16:15 | |
Lionel joined originally as a set painter, | 0:16:15 | 0:16:18 | |
but before long he was honing his real trade. | 0:16:18 | 0:16:21 | |
They were all funny comedy things which were big hits at Unity. | 0:16:21 | 0:16:25 | |
He wrote a number about a Russian horse winning the Derby. | 0:16:25 | 0:16:31 | |
# They're bringing a filly from the USSR...# | 0:16:32 | 0:16:36 | |
That was the song about a horse winning the Derby coming from the USSR. | 0:16:36 | 0:16:43 | |
# They've entered a filly from the USSR | 0:16:43 | 0:16:48 | |
# It's whispered her pedigree goes back quite far...# | 0:16:48 | 0:16:51 | |
In 1958, recommended by a friend at Unity, Lionel headed for | 0:16:51 | 0:16:55 | |
the Theatre Royal Stratford to perform a music hall in a rundown suburb of East London. | 0:16:55 | 0:17:00 | |
In spite of its unlikely location it was probably the most | 0:17:00 | 0:17:04 | |
exciting place to be in British drama. | 0:17:04 | 0:17:07 | |
Its presiding genius was Joan Littlewood, | 0:17:08 | 0:17:11 | |
one of nature's anarchists, much given to tearing up rule books, | 0:17:11 | 0:17:15 | |
politically, socially and theatrically. | 0:17:15 | 0:17:17 | |
She waged war on prim West End values | 0:17:17 | 0:17:20 | |
and championed plays by outsiders and the disenfranchised. | 0:17:20 | 0:17:24 | |
-Why don't you go out and do some touting or something? -I'm doing the best I can. | 0:17:24 | 0:17:28 | |
When Lionel arrived, Joan and the company were improvising a new | 0:17:29 | 0:17:35 | |
show based on a few pages of script by an ex-con called Frank Norman. | 0:17:35 | 0:17:40 | |
It was set in a so-called gambling den, peopled by pimps, whores, bent coppers and razor gangs. | 0:17:40 | 0:17:46 | |
-It's your fault to start with! -Mine? | 0:17:46 | 0:17:48 | |
Every geezer is workin' for him, not that I ever seen him do any work... | 0:17:48 | 0:17:51 | |
We put the English language on the stage as it is spoke. | 0:17:51 | 0:17:56 | |
Not just by the middle class. | 0:17:56 | 0:17:57 | |
And this is always, all English theatre was people talking terribly posh. | 0:17:57 | 0:18:02 | |
-MOBILE BEEPS -Excuse me, my telephone, | 0:18:02 | 0:18:04 | |
do you mind awfully if I turn it off? That is better. | 0:18:04 | 0:18:08 | |
Joan had built an extraordinary company, | 0:18:10 | 0:18:13 | |
happy to follow her revolutionary lead. Lionel got it straightaway. | 0:18:13 | 0:18:19 | |
And he loved it. | 0:18:19 | 0:18:21 | |
They had no money, they were all on about £15 per week each, | 0:18:21 | 0:18:25 | |
and I'm talking about people like Richard Harrison James Bruce, Barbara Windsor. | 0:18:25 | 0:18:31 | |
And Yootha Joyce. | 0:18:31 | 0:18:33 | |
And we had to do a show in two weeks. | 0:18:33 | 0:18:37 | |
We had two write it, rehearse it and stage it in two weeks. | 0:18:37 | 0:18:41 | |
It was called Fings Ain't Wot They Used T'Be. | 0:18:41 | 0:18:44 | |
All the music Lionel had soaked up in childhood came gushing out, | 0:18:58 | 0:19:01 | |
"Fings" had knees up, murder ballads, patter songs, novelty songs | 0:19:01 | 0:19:06 | |
and an instantly hummable title song. | 0:19:06 | 0:19:08 | |
There were a couple of songs | 0:19:08 | 0:19:11 | |
in Fings that have that roll out the barrel old-time music hall | 0:19:11 | 0:19:15 | |
nature to them, and certainly that comes straight out of it. | 0:19:15 | 0:19:20 | |
So Joan Littlewood was sitting in the theatre saying | 0:19:20 | 0:19:23 | |
"I want a knees up song, I want a good time celebration song." | 0:19:23 | 0:19:26 | |
And he comes out with... Any director would go, that's it, "I'm sold." | 0:19:26 | 0:19:31 | |
Because you have seen it, you can feel it, you know | 0:19:31 | 0:19:34 | |
exactly where you are with a song like that. | 0:19:34 | 0:19:36 | |
Perfect for that. The other thing about Fings Ain't Wot They Used T'be, | 0:19:36 | 0:19:41 | |
as a lyric, it was quite daring. | 0:19:41 | 0:19:43 | |
# There's toffs with toffee noses and poofs in coffee houses and...# | 0:19:43 | 0:19:49 | |
# It used to be... | 0:19:54 | 0:19:55 | |
# Class, doing a town buying a bit of ice. # | 0:19:55 | 0:19:59 | |
She said, | 0:19:59 | 0:20:00 | |
# And that's when her brass couldn't go down | 0:20:00 | 0:20:04 | |
# At the union price, not likely | 0:20:04 | 0:20:07 | |
# Once in golden days of yore ponces killed a lazy whore | 0:20:07 | 0:20:11 | |
# Fings ain't wot they used t'be. # You want a second chorus? | 0:20:11 | 0:20:17 | |
I think Lionel's supreme thing was his lyrics. | 0:20:21 | 0:20:27 | |
There's a song that Totters Sings and it goes, | 0:20:27 | 0:20:30 | |
# Layin' about 'ere is All very well, dear | 0:20:30 | 0:20:35 | |
# But you'll get a fat rear from laying about | 0:20:35 | 0:20:41 | |
# Get on the street. # | 0:20:41 | 0:20:43 | |
Now that is, that's genius. | 0:20:43 | 0:20:47 | |
The overall tone of violence | 0:20:49 | 0:20:51 | |
and callousness was momentarily relieved by a solo number added | 0:20:51 | 0:20:55 | |
when a young West End cabaret artist joined the company. | 0:20:55 | 0:20:59 | |
It was three days before we opened, I was called to the stage | 0:20:59 | 0:21:03 | |
and there was Joan and Lionel and Joan said, "'Ere, bird's egg," | 0:21:03 | 0:21:09 | |
she started calling me that. "Lionel has written a song for you." | 0:21:09 | 0:21:15 | |
I said, "For me?" | 0:21:15 | 0:21:17 | |
She said, "Yes, I like it and I want you to do it. | 0:21:17 | 0:21:23 | |
So immediately my little theatrical brain went, "How do you want me | 0:21:23 | 0:21:27 | |
"to do it? Choreographed, do I have dancing in it?" | 0:21:27 | 0:21:30 | |
She said "No, no, darling. I just want you to sit on a stool and just sing it." | 0:21:30 | 0:21:36 | |
"And for fuck's sake, sit on your hands. | 0:21:36 | 0:21:38 | |
"No Judy Garland at Carnegie Hall, just sit on the hands." | 0:21:38 | 0:21:42 | |
He giggled and giggled and looked at me and went, | 0:21:42 | 0:21:44 | |
"It will be all right, it will be lovely, I will go over it with you later." | 0:21:44 | 0:21:48 | |
# Where do little birds go to | 0:21:48 | 0:21:53 | |
# In the wintertime | 0:21:53 | 0:21:58 | |
# There'll be blizzards and snow, too | 0:22:00 | 0:22:04 | |
# In the wintertime...# | 0:22:04 | 0:22:10 | |
That "sit on your hands and belt it out" brashness of even the slow | 0:22:10 | 0:22:14 | |
numbers made things as fierce as rock'n'roll. | 0:22:14 | 0:22:18 | |
When it transferred to the West End it fulfilled Joan Littlewood's | 0:22:18 | 0:22:21 | |
revolutionary aims impeccably, exploding like a hand grenade | 0:22:21 | 0:22:26 | |
into the sedate world of British theatre, thrilling the young and appalling the old. | 0:22:26 | 0:22:31 | |
Actress Hermione Gingold was among the appalled. | 0:22:31 | 0:22:34 | |
It was shocking, I was embarrassed. | 0:22:34 | 0:22:38 | |
-Were you? -Yes. -Really? -Yes. | 0:22:38 | 0:22:41 | |
If you're doing a very serious play and it calls, as it sometimes does, | 0:22:41 | 0:22:47 | |
for swearing or for certain shock words, it is all right, but not to get laughs. | 0:22:47 | 0:22:54 | |
That I object to. | 0:22:54 | 0:22:56 | |
I must tell you now that originally it was not designed to get | 0:22:56 | 0:23:00 | |
laughs, here was true Cockney dialogue. | 0:23:00 | 0:23:04 | |
-Language as one knew it if one had been in Soho for any length of time. -Soho? -Yes, the real Soho. | 0:23:04 | 0:23:11 | |
I have shopped in Soho and I never heard anything like that. | 0:23:11 | 0:23:14 | |
Darling, you don't shop at the right times. | 0:23:14 | 0:23:16 | |
These were still the days when all theatrical production had to | 0:23:18 | 0:23:22 | |
be approved by the Lord Chamberlain. | 0:23:22 | 0:23:25 | |
Official theatre censor and guardian of the nation's morals. | 0:23:25 | 0:23:29 | |
He drafted a seven-point letter. | 0:23:29 | 0:23:32 | |
One day we were all called into the set and Lionel was there | 0:23:32 | 0:23:37 | |
and Joan was there and Lionel was reading out this letter. | 0:23:37 | 0:23:41 | |
I can remember the words exactly. | 0:23:42 | 0:23:45 | |
"The actor playing the part of Tosher will not get the actress playing the | 0:23:46 | 0:23:53 | |
"part of Rosie up against the table | 0:23:53 | 0:23:56 | |
"in an attitude indicative of copulation." | 0:23:56 | 0:23:59 | |
That was one sentence and the other one was, | 0:24:00 | 0:24:03 | |
"The actor playing the part of the builder's labourer, | 0:24:03 | 0:24:07 | |
"will not cross the stage carrying the plank at an erotic angle." | 0:24:07 | 0:24:13 | |
We couldn't believe it. | 0:24:14 | 0:24:16 | |
We just stood there howling with laughter, | 0:24:16 | 0:24:19 | |
Lionel was just crying with laughter and Joan said, "Isn't it wonderful?" | 0:24:19 | 0:24:23 | |
She said "Do you think we could work it into the show? | 0:24:23 | 0:24:26 | |
"Could we read it out?" We never took a blind bit of notice. | 0:24:26 | 0:24:30 | |
Fings Ain't Wot They Used T'be ran for two years in the West End. | 0:24:31 | 0:24:35 | |
Noel Coward saw it, Judy Garland saw it, Princess Margaret saw it. | 0:24:36 | 0:24:42 | |
But for his next project Lionel upped his game and decided to | 0:24:42 | 0:24:46 | |
adapt one of the great classics of English literature. | 0:24:46 | 0:24:49 | |
And of British cinema. | 0:24:49 | 0:24:51 | |
David Lean's 1948 film adaptation of Oliver Twist was right up | 0:24:56 | 0:25:01 | |
Lionel's street. | 0:25:01 | 0:25:02 | |
Not unlike Fings Ain't Wot They Used T'be, it was brutal, | 0:25:02 | 0:25:05 | |
callous, sentimental and Jewish. | 0:25:05 | 0:25:07 | |
Oliver is a brilliant story. | 0:25:12 | 0:25:15 | |
The great thing that Lionel did was, | 0:25:15 | 0:25:18 | |
I am told he never read the book, | 0:25:18 | 0:25:21 | |
but then I never read the book of Les Miserables, so he | 0:25:21 | 0:25:23 | |
and I have a lot in common, but what he did do was see the film, | 0:25:23 | 0:25:28 | |
the great David Lean film starring Alec Guinness and it was that that he adapted. | 0:25:28 | 0:25:33 | |
He saw the kernel of the story, | 0:25:33 | 0:25:36 | |
something he wanted to turn into his very particular style. | 0:25:36 | 0:25:39 | |
Come on in. | 0:25:39 | 0:25:41 | |
It was an act of barefaced cheek, | 0:25:44 | 0:25:47 | |
for an untrained East End upstart to make a musical | 0:25:47 | 0:25:51 | |
out of one of the greatest classics of English literature. | 0:25:51 | 0:25:54 | |
Luckily, Lionel was never short of barefaced cheek. | 0:25:54 | 0:25:56 | |
We had the score and I went round with him sometimes | 0:25:56 | 0:26:02 | |
to get it to get it on the radio to get some money for it. | 0:26:02 | 0:26:05 | |
Of course he can't sing but he used to sort of talk his way, | 0:26:05 | 0:26:10 | |
like Rex Harrison would talk his way through a song. And nobody would touch it. | 0:26:10 | 0:26:14 | |
They all turned it down. | 0:26:14 | 0:26:16 | |
I think the only person who took him seriously was in fact the producer Donald Albery. | 0:26:16 | 0:26:22 | |
He gave Lionel the chance to do this, | 0:26:22 | 0:26:25 | |
but when the show opened on its pre-London tryout in the Wimbledon Theatre, | 0:26:25 | 0:26:31 | |
I think it wasn't very well received. | 0:26:31 | 0:26:34 | |
# ..winding stairway without any banister...# | 0:26:34 | 0:26:38 | |
All through the Wimbledon tryout, Lionel | 0:26:38 | 0:26:41 | |
and director Peter Coe tinkered, cutting and adding scenes and songs. | 0:26:41 | 0:26:47 | |
The West End opening on June 30, 1960 was not a sell-out. | 0:26:47 | 0:26:53 | |
The smell of turkey was in the air. | 0:26:53 | 0:26:56 | |
I spent a lot of the day with Lionel, | 0:26:57 | 0:26:59 | |
the day it opened. I was interviewing him. | 0:26:59 | 0:27:03 | |
He was as nervous, the friend of mine used to say, | 0:27:03 | 0:27:05 | |
he was as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a roomful of rocking chairs. | 0:27:05 | 0:27:10 | |
Lionel walked out of the theatre once the curtain went up | 0:27:10 | 0:27:14 | |
and spent most of the evening with Barbara Windsor, | 0:27:14 | 0:27:17 | |
who was down the road starring in Fings Ain't Wot They Used T'be. | 0:27:17 | 0:27:21 | |
And he came into our room and sat there | 0:27:21 | 0:27:23 | |
and he was shaking, saying, "They're not going to like me, they're not going to like me." | 0:27:23 | 0:27:27 | |
And then someone comes in, "The curtain is coming down, | 0:27:27 | 0:27:29 | |
"get back to the theatre." | 0:27:29 | 0:27:32 | |
His first reaction was thinking, "Oh, my God, they're booing me." | 0:27:32 | 0:27:37 | |
He heard this terrible noise, | 0:27:37 | 0:27:39 | |
this enormous sound coming out of the theatre. | 0:27:39 | 0:27:41 | |
They were shouting, "Author! Author! Author!" | 0:27:41 | 0:27:45 | |
And as he came through he thought they were shooting, "Awful! Awful!" | 0:27:45 | 0:27:48 | |
And then he realised it was being given the most extraordinary ovation. | 0:27:49 | 0:27:54 | |
Almost one of unparalleled success, I think it went on for about 20 minutes. | 0:27:54 | 0:28:00 | |
It was the biggest, least expected hit of the year, | 0:28:00 | 0:28:06 | |
I remember the crowd shaking his hand, slapping his back, | 0:28:07 | 0:28:12 | |
filling the room with his nervous little twitches and smiles and grins. | 0:28:12 | 0:28:16 | |
And not quite believing what was going on around him. | 0:28:16 | 0:28:20 | |
# If you don't mind having to go without things | 0:28:20 | 0:28:23 | |
-# It's a fine life -It's a fine life...# | 0:28:23 | 0:28:26 | |
That first production ran for a record-breaking five years | 0:28:26 | 0:28:31 | |
in the West End, it was a smash on Broadway and it's been running | 0:28:31 | 0:28:35 | |
in one production or other somewhere in the world pretty much ever since. | 0:28:35 | 0:28:39 | |
# Let the prudes look done on us Let the wide world frown on us | 0:28:39 | 0:28:43 | |
# It's a fine, fine life. # | 0:28:43 | 0:28:45 | |
Lionel had come a long way. | 0:28:45 | 0:28:47 | |
Whereas Fings was all pastiche and parody, Oliver! was fresh | 0:28:47 | 0:28:51 | |
and full of surprises. | 0:28:51 | 0:28:53 | |
Not bad for a one fingered pianist. | 0:28:53 | 0:28:55 | |
# There's a little ditty They're singing in the city | 0:28:55 | 0:28:58 | |
# Especially when I've been on the gin or the beer...# | 0:28:58 | 0:29:03 | |
# I shall scream I shall scream | 0:29:06 | 0:29:10 | |
# Till they hasten to my rescue I shall scream. # | 0:29:11 | 0:29:14 | |
# Where | 0:29:15 | 0:29:18 | |
# Where is love? # | 0:29:18 | 0:29:24 | |
People go, "Oliver!, what a wonderful family musical," which it is, | 0:29:29 | 0:29:33 | |
and always has been, but I think people forget how revolutionary | 0:29:33 | 0:29:38 | |
that musical was when it came out in 1960. | 0:29:38 | 0:29:41 | |
Nobody had ever seen anything as dark and gloomy and, | 0:29:41 | 0:29:44 | |
the death of Nancy at the end, Ron's extraordinary performance. | 0:29:44 | 0:29:51 | |
I'm reviewing the situation | 0:29:51 | 0:29:57 | |
# Can a fella be a villain all his life? | 0:29:57 | 0:30:00 | |
# Oh, the trials! And tribulations! | 0:30:00 | 0:30:04 | |
# Better settle down and get myself a wife. # | 0:30:04 | 0:30:08 | |
The role of Fagin was created by Ron Moody | 0:30:08 | 0:30:10 | |
and he's reprised it several times since. | 0:30:10 | 0:30:13 | |
Like Hamlet, it's a part that every spirited actor wants a crack at. | 0:30:13 | 0:30:18 | |
Roy Hudd's turn came in 1977. | 0:30:18 | 0:30:20 | |
# I think I better think it out again. # | 0:30:20 | 0:30:24 | |
To play Fagin was a terrific treat, and we were talking once | 0:30:24 | 0:30:29 | |
and Lionel said to me, "You are very good in this, you know." | 0:30:29 | 0:30:33 | |
I said, "Thanks for that." | 0:30:33 | 0:30:34 | |
He said, "You don't play him like so many do, like Father Christmas." | 0:30:34 | 0:30:39 | |
He said "He ain't Father Christmas, he's anything but Father Christmas." | 0:30:39 | 0:30:43 | |
"He's an evil old sod." | 0:30:43 | 0:30:45 | |
But in that song it's the one time | 0:30:45 | 0:30:48 | |
when Fagin displays any sort of human feelings at all. | 0:30:48 | 0:30:52 | |
# What happens when I'm 70? # | 0:30:53 | 0:30:58 | |
Jesus, there must come a time, 70, when you're old or you're cold and who cares if you live or die? | 0:30:58 | 0:31:05 | |
The one consolation is... the money you may have put by! | 0:31:07 | 0:31:12 | |
And suddenly he is off again with optimism. | 0:31:12 | 0:31:15 | |
Lionel's undoubted favourite song from the Oliver! score was | 0:31:16 | 0:31:20 | |
the big Act 2 show stopper, As Long As He Needs Me. | 0:31:20 | 0:31:23 | |
# I'll cling on steadfastly | 0:31:26 | 0:31:30 | |
# As long as he needs me | 0:31:30 | 0:31:35 | |
# As long as life is long | 0:31:35 | 0:31:40 | |
# I'll love him, right or wrong | 0:31:40 | 0:31:45 | |
# And somehow I'll be strong | 0:31:45 | 0:31:50 | |
# As long as he needs me...# | 0:31:50 | 0:31:55 | |
Over the past couple of decades, the Sylvia Young Theatre School has | 0:31:58 | 0:32:01 | |
provided a reliable flow of talent to various productions of Oliver. | 0:32:01 | 0:32:06 | |
# ...sooooo | 0:32:06 | 0:32:09 | |
# I won't betray his trust...# | 0:32:09 | 0:32:15 | |
OK, lovely. Good build. | 0:32:15 | 0:32:17 | |
Now we are building to the real passionate part, | 0:32:17 | 0:32:20 | |
the point where we get closer to her emotion, her true emotion. | 0:32:20 | 0:32:24 | |
Now Bart does something clever here. | 0:32:24 | 0:32:27 | |
You don't even know how clever it is, I suspect. | 0:32:27 | 0:32:31 | |
Let's see if we can work it out, what he does. | 0:32:31 | 0:32:34 | |
Of all the songs in Oliver!, and there are some fine numbers, I think | 0:32:35 | 0:32:40 | |
this one stands out so much because a lot of his numbers, | 0:32:40 | 0:32:43 | |
you want to move to and you want to, you want to jig along with, | 0:32:43 | 0:32:46 | |
if you like but this one makes you sit and listen. | 0:32:46 | 0:32:51 | |
What happens at this point? | 0:32:51 | 0:32:53 | |
HE PLAYS PIANO | 0:32:53 | 0:32:56 | |
You will all recognise that, it is quite common at the end of a song. | 0:32:56 | 0:33:00 | |
-There's a key change. -There is a key change. | 0:33:00 | 0:33:02 | |
It's used a lot. It gives the song a little bit of lift. | 0:33:02 | 0:33:05 | |
It gives it a new direction at the end. It's a wonderful key change. | 0:33:05 | 0:33:08 | |
Anyone want to have a guess how many semitones it is? | 0:33:08 | 0:33:11 | |
-Anyone have a great ear? -It's not a third, is it? | 0:33:11 | 0:33:15 | |
It is, it is three semitones which I have to tell you, is not that common. | 0:33:15 | 0:33:19 | |
OK, let's go back to # When someone needs you... | 0:33:19 | 0:33:24 | |
# You love them so | 0:33:24 | 0:33:29 | |
# I won't betray his trust...# | 0:33:29 | 0:33:35 | |
There are thousands of musicians, | 0:33:35 | 0:33:37 | |
thousands upon thousands who have tried to create, even taken this | 0:33:37 | 0:33:41 | |
as their starting point, I see how this works, you have that and then | 0:33:41 | 0:33:44 | |
you have a new idea and then you come back and you build it and it goes up. | 0:33:44 | 0:33:48 | |
And it doesn't work. | 0:33:48 | 0:33:50 | |
If you wanted to have an example of magic in music or | 0:33:50 | 0:33:54 | |
magic in art, it's here. | 0:33:54 | 0:33:56 | |
# Meeeeeeee. # | 0:33:56 | 0:34:02 | |
# When the big times come I'm gonna have me some | 0:34:06 | 0:34:10 | |
# I'm gonna do the things My daddy never done | 0:34:10 | 0:34:14 | |
# I'm gonna get rich quick And you're a lucky chick | 0:34:14 | 0:34:19 | |
# If you're around when I'm big time. # | 0:34:19 | 0:34:24 | |
With a catalogue of smash hits under his belt, two nose jobs | 0:34:24 | 0:34:28 | |
and only the ears still needing attention, | 0:34:28 | 0:34:30 | |
Lionel was rapidly assuming ownership of the 1960s. | 0:34:30 | 0:34:34 | |
He made it his business to know everybody. | 0:34:34 | 0:34:36 | |
But among the photo ops, | 0:34:38 | 0:34:40 | |
some genuine and long-lasting friendships developed. | 0:34:40 | 0:34:44 | |
There is this phone call, | 0:34:44 | 0:34:45 | |
the phone goes and the voice says "Hello, this is Noel." | 0:34:45 | 0:34:49 | |
I said "Noel who?" "Coward you Cockney C..." | 0:34:49 | 0:34:53 | |
Which is alliteration, right? | 0:34:53 | 0:34:56 | |
Noel Coward became a mentor to Lionel, | 0:35:00 | 0:35:03 | |
advising him on how to write lyrics, what to do with money | 0:35:03 | 0:35:06 | |
and the even more tricky question of surviving in a world where | 0:35:06 | 0:35:10 | |
you could still get sent to jail for being gay. | 0:35:10 | 0:35:13 | |
In those days you didn't dare mention it and that was a big problem for him | 0:35:13 | 0:35:19 | |
because, being in a big family, always saying "When will you get | 0:35:19 | 0:35:21 | |
"a girlfriend?" You're under a lot of pressure from your peers. | 0:35:21 | 0:35:26 | |
# What am I gonna do about the "I love you" bit? # | 0:35:26 | 0:35:31 | |
One of his closest friends was the song stylist Alma Cogan. | 0:35:31 | 0:35:35 | |
She once proposed to him on live TV, but both of them were in on the joke. | 0:35:35 | 0:35:39 | |
-# The "I love you" bit -I love you. # | 0:35:41 | 0:35:44 | |
He said to me once and I had never heard the phrase before, | 0:35:44 | 0:35:48 | |
he said, "You know, the thing is | 0:35:48 | 0:35:49 | |
"when you're gay, you've either got to be pretty or witty." | 0:35:49 | 0:35:53 | |
He said, "I am pretty witty." | 0:35:53 | 0:35:56 | |
He was making nine quid a minute even | 0:35:56 | 0:35:59 | |
when he was sitting in the bath and God knows he spent. | 0:35:59 | 0:36:02 | |
Lionel was a fool for innovative suits, | 0:36:02 | 0:36:04 | |
dangerous hats and breathtaking cars. | 0:36:04 | 0:36:08 | |
One day, he said to me, "Here, Vic, come on, I'll give you a lift!" | 0:36:08 | 0:36:11 | |
And he had this car, it was like getting into the cockpit of a plane. | 0:36:11 | 0:36:15 | |
"Voom!" | 0:36:15 | 0:36:16 | |
We got in this thing. "Voom! Voom!" I said, "Where we going to go?" | 0:36:16 | 0:36:21 | |
He said, "Up Wardour Street." | 0:36:21 | 0:36:23 | |
And I said, "Oh, why?" He said, "Cos all the faces are in Wardour Street! | 0:36:23 | 0:36:28 | |
"All the faces! | 0:36:28 | 0:36:30 | |
"I'm going to lock off one end of Wardour Street and lock off the other | 0:36:30 | 0:36:34 | |
"and have all them faces!" | 0:36:34 | 0:36:36 | |
"Voom! Voom!" IMITATES AN ENGINE PURRING | 0:36:36 | 0:36:41 | |
MUSICAL INTRO PLAYS | 0:36:41 | 0:36:45 | |
# Who's this geezer Hitler? | 0:36:45 | 0:36:48 | |
# Who does he think he is? # | 0:36:48 | 0:36:51 | |
The shows got bigger and bolder. | 0:36:51 | 0:36:54 | |
For the follow up to Oliver!, he restaged the Second World War, | 0:36:54 | 0:36:57 | |
only this time, as Noel Coward put it, | 0:36:57 | 0:36:59 | |
"making it twice as long and twice as loud as the real thing." | 0:36:59 | 0:37:03 | |
# ..he would disappear! # | 0:37:03 | 0:37:05 | |
By now, the collaboration between Lionel and the set designer, | 0:37:05 | 0:37:09 | |
Sean Kenny, had warmed to a close friendship. | 0:37:09 | 0:37:12 | |
A former architect, Sean loved to inspire awe. | 0:37:12 | 0:37:17 | |
AIR RAID SIRENS BLARE | 0:37:17 | 0:37:19 | |
BOMBS FALL | 0:37:19 | 0:37:21 | |
The opening sequence of London being bombed, | 0:37:21 | 0:37:25 | |
you saw people rushing onto the Bank station, | 0:37:25 | 0:37:28 | |
on the front of the stage, during the overture, | 0:37:28 | 0:37:30 | |
and suddenly, the entire front of the stage lifted 30 foot in the air, | 0:37:30 | 0:37:35 | |
revealing behind it the spiral staircases, | 0:37:35 | 0:37:38 | |
for people to get down to the platforms, and during it, | 0:37:38 | 0:37:42 | |
trains rushing onto the stage at 30mph disgorging passengers. | 0:37:42 | 0:37:48 | |
And it was absolutely amazing! | 0:37:48 | 0:37:51 | |
# Look at me carrying on | 0:37:51 | 0:37:54 | |
# Look at him carrying on... # | 0:37:54 | 0:37:56 | |
In 1962, Lionel and Sean Kenny headed for Liverpool, | 0:37:56 | 0:38:00 | |
where they worked with local writer Alun Owen on Maggie May, | 0:38:00 | 0:38:04 | |
a folk opera set in the docks. | 0:38:04 | 0:38:06 | |
It was clever, ambitious and ahead of its time. | 0:38:06 | 0:38:10 | |
But neither Blitz nor Maggie May | 0:38:10 | 0:38:12 | |
could ever match the commercial success of Oliver! | 0:38:12 | 0:38:16 | |
Lionel nevertheless maintained a relentless work rate. | 0:38:16 | 0:38:19 | |
In 1963, film producer Cubby Broccoli commissioned him | 0:38:20 | 0:38:24 | |
to write the theme song for the second Bond movie. | 0:38:24 | 0:38:27 | |
INTRO PLAYS TO: "From Russia With Love" | 0:38:27 | 0:38:30 | |
# From Russia with love | 0:38:34 | 0:38:40 | |
# I fly to you... # | 0:38:41 | 0:38:45 | |
'I was managing Matt Monro at the time and it was a great marriage.' | 0:38:45 | 0:38:51 | |
I love the way Matt sings it and, er, | 0:38:51 | 0:38:53 | |
and I thought Lionel was terrific in that. | 0:38:53 | 0:38:56 | |
It was quite a different thing for Lionel Bart, | 0:38:56 | 0:38:58 | |
to do a straightforward commissioned work. | 0:38:58 | 0:39:01 | |
SONG CONTINUES | 0:39:01 | 0:39:04 | |
Lionel polished and repolished the lyrics endlessly. | 0:39:04 | 0:39:09 | |
# ..from Russia with love... # | 0:39:09 | 0:39:13 | |
I used to joke with him and say, "Lionel, that's a great rhyme! | 0:39:13 | 0:39:16 | |
"How did you get 'tongue-tied young pride' in there?" You know. He says, | 0:39:16 | 0:39:20 | |
"Yes, darling, well, I told ya, I'm a bit of a word juggla!" | 0:39:20 | 0:39:23 | |
# That was the week that was! Floods from Newton Abbot to... # | 0:39:26 | 0:39:30 | |
Not everybody was so impressed. | 0:39:30 | 0:39:33 | |
Lionel had grown too successful, too prolific, too popular. | 0:39:33 | 0:39:37 | |
The backlash had to come. | 0:39:37 | 0:39:39 | |
# Consider yourselves in luck! # AUDIENCE LAUGHS | 0:39:39 | 0:39:43 | |
Those terribly satirical people who did | 0:39:43 | 0:39:45 | |
That Was The Week That Was on the BBC were merciless. | 0:39:45 | 0:39:49 | |
# ..so much... # | 0:39:49 | 0:39:51 | |
APPLAUSE | 0:39:51 | 0:39:54 | |
I'd like you, if you would, to comment | 0:39:54 | 0:39:56 | |
on one or two of the things you've said, may I? | 0:39:56 | 0:39:58 | |
He says, "People like what's familiar," said Mr Bart. | 0:39:58 | 0:40:01 | |
"They're thinking a note ahead every time they hear a tune, | 0:40:01 | 0:40:04 | |
"a word ahead when they listen to a lyric. | 0:40:04 | 0:40:06 | |
"All I do is to let them feel both are familiar, recognised like, | 0:40:06 | 0:40:10 | |
"then give them a little surprise by changing the phrase." | 0:40:10 | 0:40:14 | |
Don't you owe them more than that, Mr Bart? | 0:40:14 | 0:40:16 | |
-You know, just one changed phrase, surely? -Well... | 0:40:16 | 0:40:19 | |
-I don't owe them anything, they don't owe me anything. -Ah! | 0:40:19 | 0:40:21 | |
They like what I do? I'm delighted. If they don't, that's just too bad. | 0:40:21 | 0:40:25 | |
Lionel didn't actually need anyone to tell him | 0:40:25 | 0:40:27 | |
he was an East End upstart with one-finger piano skills. | 0:40:27 | 0:40:31 | |
His success was already fuelling dangerous insecurities. | 0:40:31 | 0:40:35 | |
The response was, once again, to up the stakes. | 0:40:35 | 0:40:39 | |
# A London cab goes, "Bang!" An armoured suit goes, "Clang!" # | 0:40:39 | 0:40:44 | |
Twang!! was a big budget spectacular take on the Robin Hood story, | 0:40:44 | 0:40:48 | |
designed to bludgeon his detractors into submission. | 0:40:48 | 0:40:52 | |
# ..that is the sound you set... # | 0:40:52 | 0:40:54 | |
You get this phone call, Lionel's doing a musical. | 0:40:54 | 0:40:56 | |
We'd been waiting for him to do a new musical, you see, | 0:40:56 | 0:40:59 | |
and it's all going to be about Robin Hood, sounded a good idea, | 0:40:59 | 0:41:02 | |
Robin Hood, you know, and, er...and... | 0:41:02 | 0:41:07 | |
Bernard Delfont was the producer. | 0:41:07 | 0:41:09 | |
Paddy Stone, the great Paddy Stone, choreographer. | 0:41:09 | 0:41:13 | |
Oliver Messel was going to do the costumes. | 0:41:13 | 0:41:16 | |
Joan Littlewood was directing. | 0:41:16 | 0:41:19 | |
There was going to be Jimmy Booth, er, me, | 0:41:19 | 0:41:22 | |
Bernie Bresslaw, Ronnie Corbett. | 0:41:22 | 0:41:26 | |
It shouldn't have gone wrong. It should never have gone wrong. | 0:41:26 | 0:41:29 | |
The chemistry, the creative chemistry, | 0:41:29 | 0:41:32 | |
that was set up for the original production | 0:41:32 | 0:41:36 | |
did not mix, it exploded, in the wrong way, | 0:41:36 | 0:41:40 | |
and, er... | 0:41:40 | 0:41:42 | |
we weren't working as a team. | 0:41:42 | 0:41:44 | |
The rubble left by that chemical explosion | 0:41:46 | 0:41:49 | |
had to be reassembled everyday. | 0:41:49 | 0:41:51 | |
New lines, new songs, new scenes, new story! | 0:41:51 | 0:41:56 | |
Overall, how many changes, how much rewriting has been done at it? | 0:41:56 | 0:42:00 | |
Absolutely everything! | 0:42:00 | 0:42:03 | |
I don't do anything the same. | 0:42:03 | 0:42:05 | |
Well, I was down there this morning watching one scene being changed at | 0:42:05 | 0:42:08 | |
-the 11th hour? You start tomorrow? -I'm on my most unfortunate day, | 0:42:08 | 0:42:11 | |
cos every one of my scenes have been changed at this time, you know. | 0:42:11 | 0:42:15 | |
How do you cope with this change? I mean, how do you make sure | 0:42:15 | 0:42:17 | |
you don't put the wrong lines in the wrong place? | 0:42:17 | 0:42:19 | |
What we do is write it on the scenery. | 0:42:19 | 0:42:21 | |
Oliver Messel's going to have a fit when he sees his scenery, | 0:42:21 | 0:42:24 | |
because we've got all dialogue written, you know. | 0:42:24 | 0:42:27 | |
There was a chap we knew and he said, | 0:42:29 | 0:42:32 | |
"Is it all right, Joan, if I just go to the loo?" | 0:42:32 | 0:42:35 | |
You know, so she said, "Yes, go on." So they carried on rehearsing | 0:42:35 | 0:42:38 | |
and he came back in and he said, "Where were we?" | 0:42:38 | 0:42:40 | |
She said, "No, I'm sorry, we cut your scene out." | 0:42:40 | 0:42:43 | |
He said, "Blimey, good job I didn't have a crap, | 0:42:43 | 0:42:45 | |
"I'd have been out the show altogether!" | 0:42:45 | 0:42:48 | |
HE LAUGHS: That's what was happening, though! | 0:42:48 | 0:42:50 | |
It was chaos! LAUGHTER CONTINUES | 0:42:50 | 0:42:54 | |
After a disastrous pre-West End tryout in Manchester, | 0:42:54 | 0:42:58 | |
Joan Littlewood jumped ship, along with Oliver Messel | 0:42:58 | 0:43:01 | |
and the show's producers, but Lionel soldiered on, fuelled by | 0:43:01 | 0:43:05 | |
hope, grit and a selection of top quality pharmaceuticals. | 0:43:05 | 0:43:09 | |
Take a step and kneel, all right. | 0:43:09 | 0:43:11 | |
He brought in a Broadway show doctor | 0:43:11 | 0:43:14 | |
and kept everything afloat with truckloads of his own money. | 0:43:14 | 0:43:18 | |
You, fall on the ground and go like that. | 0:43:18 | 0:43:21 | |
'To use your own money' | 0:43:21 | 0:43:24 | |
to bring in a show that your own intelligence | 0:43:24 | 0:43:29 | |
tells you, beyond question, it's going to fail | 0:43:29 | 0:43:33 | |
represents a psychological enigma... | 0:43:33 | 0:43:36 | |
..that, um, it would take a team of psychiatrists | 0:43:38 | 0:43:42 | |
sitting around the couch to even get close to. | 0:43:42 | 0:43:46 | |
He just thought this was going to work. | 0:43:46 | 0:43:49 | |
You couldn't talk to him at all. | 0:43:49 | 0:43:51 | |
I mean, even when I spent a couple of days with him in his flat, | 0:43:51 | 0:43:54 | |
he said, "Everything was going to be all right, it's great! | 0:43:54 | 0:43:56 | |
"They'll love it! They'll love it!" | 0:43:56 | 0:43:58 | |
You see, and that's what... And he wouldn't listen. | 0:43:58 | 0:44:01 | |
He just wouldn't listen! | 0:44:01 | 0:44:03 | |
# ..the mission bells once rang... # | 0:44:03 | 0:44:06 | |
The London opening was at the Shaftesbury Theatre | 0:44:06 | 0:44:09 | |
on the 20th of December 1965. | 0:44:09 | 0:44:12 | |
The stars turned out to witness a crucifixion. | 0:44:12 | 0:44:16 | |
I was there the opening night | 0:44:16 | 0:44:18 | |
and I think McCartney was on the same row as me. | 0:44:18 | 0:44:22 | |
Because, by then, all the young emerging artists | 0:44:22 | 0:44:25 | |
were encouraged to go and see Lionel Bart musicals. | 0:44:25 | 0:44:29 | |
And, um, the gowns were sort of flowing and Maid Marian's | 0:44:29 | 0:44:34 | |
caught on a nail on one of the sets and all the set fell down. | 0:44:34 | 0:44:37 | |
A glorious disaster. | 0:44:37 | 0:44:39 | |
Oh, God, what an opening night that was! | 0:44:41 | 0:44:43 | |
They just yelled at us, screaming, "Get off!" Oh, God! | 0:44:43 | 0:44:46 | |
And I always remember, in the middle of this, Danny LaRue standing up, | 0:44:46 | 0:44:50 | |
saying, "Give them a chance, it's not their fault!" Oh, it was... | 0:44:50 | 0:44:53 | |
You...you had to be there! | 0:44:53 | 0:44:56 | |
The headlines said it all. | 0:44:56 | 0:44:58 | |
The Sun went, "Clang!!" | 0:44:58 | 0:45:00 | |
The Sketch went, "Boo, boo, boo for Bart!" | 0:45:00 | 0:45:03 | |
And the Daily Express? | 0:45:03 | 0:45:05 | |
"Twang" two exclamation points, "..goes Plonk" two exclamation points. | 0:45:05 | 0:45:12 | |
I didn't write the headline, but, um, | 0:45:12 | 0:45:15 | |
the general drift of my review was, "I was hoping for a miracle." | 0:45:15 | 0:45:19 | |
Lionel, in a way, did not forgive me for those words | 0:45:19 | 0:45:23 | |
and, to the end of his life, every now and then, he would say... | 0:45:23 | 0:45:27 | |
"You were hoping for a miracle." It stuck deep in him. | 0:45:27 | 0:45:31 | |
Twang!! limped on for a month of empty houses | 0:45:31 | 0:45:35 | |
before Lionel was finally forced to admit defeat. | 0:45:35 | 0:45:39 | |
# What is happy for some may bring others down low | 0:45:39 | 0:45:44 | |
# What is man? | 0:45:44 | 0:45:46 | |
# Contrary! | 0:45:46 | 0:45:49 | |
# He is fish, fowl and flea | 0:45:49 | 0:45:51 | |
# He is both you and me | 0:45:51 | 0:45:54 | |
# He is everything that ever was... # | 0:45:54 | 0:45:57 | |
To lick his wounds, he retired to his other grand folly. | 0:45:57 | 0:46:01 | |
He'd bought a Victorian pile in Chelsea | 0:46:01 | 0:46:04 | |
and, at ruinous cost, remodelled it in a style | 0:46:04 | 0:46:07 | |
combining baronial Gothic with cutting edge technology. | 0:46:07 | 0:46:12 | |
He had a big living area with a piano in it and stuff and he had... | 0:46:12 | 0:46:17 | |
I think he had, like, suits of armour going up the stairs, | 0:46:17 | 0:46:20 | |
things like that, and a big massive lampshade. | 0:46:20 | 0:46:22 | |
He had a TV in the wall, with a remote control. | 0:46:24 | 0:46:27 | |
And, at the time, that's rare. | 0:46:27 | 0:46:28 | |
Everybody called it "The Fun Palace", a place | 0:46:29 | 0:46:32 | |
in permanent party mode, where the drinks were always on Lionel. | 0:46:32 | 0:46:37 | |
I met a guy once and he said to me, "Oh, you're Lionel Bart's nephew?" | 0:46:37 | 0:46:40 | |
I said, "Yeah." He said, "I went to a party at Lionel Bart's house once. | 0:46:40 | 0:46:44 | |
"I went in there Wednesday and came out Saturday. | 0:46:44 | 0:46:46 | |
"My wife called the police!" | 0:46:46 | 0:46:48 | |
He liked showing off, you know, he had the dough! | 0:46:48 | 0:46:51 | |
And this is a fun time, it's the '60s, everybody was swinging! | 0:46:51 | 0:46:55 | |
Every night was party night! | 0:46:55 | 0:46:58 | |
You know, we all got stoned and...and...lived it up! | 0:46:58 | 0:47:03 | |
Lionel continued to spend with reckless abandon. | 0:47:05 | 0:47:08 | |
His generosity and gullibility were legendary. | 0:47:08 | 0:47:13 | |
I mean, he'd get a young chap, a boyfriend, for a weekend, | 0:47:13 | 0:47:18 | |
and give him a sports car! | 0:47:18 | 0:47:20 | |
Now, if you're going to do that kind of spending... | 0:47:20 | 0:47:22 | |
..you're on the way down. | 0:47:24 | 0:47:26 | |
Only Oliver! continued to go from strength to strength. | 0:47:26 | 0:47:30 | |
In 1969, Oliver! the movie won six Oscars, | 0:47:30 | 0:47:33 | |
including Best Original Score. | 0:47:33 | 0:47:36 | |
Universal Studios presented Lionel with the keys to Hollywood, | 0:47:36 | 0:47:40 | |
including the little one for the drinks cabinet. | 0:47:40 | 0:47:44 | |
When he first went to Hollywood, they give him anything he wanted! | 0:47:44 | 0:47:48 | |
The big offices! | 0:47:48 | 0:47:50 | |
"I had this huge office, Vic! I didn't know what to do, so I says, | 0:47:50 | 0:47:53 | |
"'I think I need a gorilla in here, a big stuffed toy!'" | 0:47:53 | 0:47:55 | |
And they got him one! | 0:47:55 | 0:47:57 | |
So he sat at the desk with a gorilla next to him. | 0:47:57 | 0:47:59 | |
Didn't do anything when he was there, | 0:47:59 | 0:48:01 | |
except go around and see everybody and have a good time. | 0:48:01 | 0:48:04 | |
If he'd have done the work, then, you know, | 0:48:06 | 0:48:08 | |
they might have carried it on, but they said, "Where's the work? | 0:48:08 | 0:48:11 | |
"Where's the piece you're supposed to be writing?" "It's all up here." | 0:48:11 | 0:48:14 | |
"No, no, that's not good enough," you know, "On your bike." | 0:48:14 | 0:48:17 | |
AEROPLANE ENGINE ROARS | 0:48:19 | 0:48:21 | |
# George Alfred Blake... # | 0:48:21 | 0:48:25 | |
Back in England, it seemed as if his whole life was going, "Twang!!" | 0:48:25 | 0:48:30 | |
He bought every round, he handed out presents. | 0:48:30 | 0:48:33 | |
And to fund it, he sold first The Fun Palace, then, | 0:48:33 | 0:48:37 | |
piece by piece, the rights to Oliver! and his back catalogue. | 0:48:37 | 0:48:41 | |
Why do we behave the way we do? | 0:48:41 | 0:48:43 | |
We spend our lives trying to work it out. | 0:48:43 | 0:48:45 | |
And Lionel just had... | 0:48:47 | 0:48:49 | |
the self-destruct button... | 0:48:49 | 0:48:52 | |
far too close to hand. He just had to reach out with his thumb... | 0:48:52 | 0:48:57 | |
and press it. | 0:48:57 | 0:48:59 | |
HE PLAYS "Where is Love?" | 0:48:59 | 0:49:02 | |
By 1972, he was a certified bankrupt. | 0:49:06 | 0:49:09 | |
He played even poverty to the gallery, though, presenting himself | 0:49:09 | 0:49:13 | |
on BBC's Nationwide as a vagrant, left only with rags and rubble | 0:49:13 | 0:49:18 | |
and the winsome shreds of a half-remembered tune. | 0:49:18 | 0:49:21 | |
He was no good with money. No good at all. | 0:49:24 | 0:49:26 | |
He hadn't got a clue. | 0:49:26 | 0:49:28 | |
I mean, that's why he sold rights to shows on the back of fag packets, | 0:49:28 | 0:49:32 | |
so he could buy another round of drinks, for God's sake! | 0:49:32 | 0:49:35 | |
And he always believed, Lionel, you see, and so do I, | 0:49:35 | 0:49:38 | |
if he'd handled himself properly, he would've written another Oliver! | 0:49:38 | 0:49:43 | |
He always believed he could, he'd done it once, | 0:49:43 | 0:49:46 | |
why not time and time again? | 0:49:46 | 0:49:48 | |
And so, he kept on trying. | 0:49:49 | 0:49:51 | |
He kissed and made up with Joan Littlewood | 0:49:51 | 0:49:54 | |
and went back to his roots with The Londoners at Stratford East, | 0:49:54 | 0:49:57 | |
a brave attempt to recapture | 0:49:57 | 0:49:59 | |
the freshness of Fings Ain't What They Used T'Be. | 0:49:59 | 0:50:01 | |
# Seven years bad luck if you break a looking glass, they say | 0:50:01 | 0:50:06 | |
# Well, I've heard 'em say Well, that's what they say... # | 0:50:06 | 0:50:09 | |
It's like a shadow of Lionel Bart at his best. | 0:50:09 | 0:50:13 | |
Of course, it was enjoyable and it was great to see him, | 0:50:13 | 0:50:16 | |
but it didn't signal a renaissance | 0:50:16 | 0:50:18 | |
or a return, it signalled, um, a farewell, really. | 0:50:18 | 0:50:23 | |
There were personal setbacks too. | 0:50:24 | 0:50:27 | |
Between 1966 and 1973, he lost both his parents | 0:50:27 | 0:50:31 | |
and many of his closest friends. | 0:50:31 | 0:50:33 | |
Alma Cogan... | 0:50:33 | 0:50:36 | |
Noel Coward... | 0:50:36 | 0:50:38 | |
Judy Garland... | 0:50:38 | 0:50:41 | |
Sean Kenny. They all died. | 0:50:41 | 0:50:44 | |
And he was drinking so much, | 0:50:44 | 0:50:45 | |
it looked likely he'd be next on the list. | 0:50:45 | 0:50:48 | |
I mean, he used to say to me he forgot 14, er, 15 years of his life. | 0:50:48 | 0:50:53 | |
He says, "I don't remember, love, anything about it." | 0:50:53 | 0:50:55 | |
He said, and I'll do a bad impression of Lionel here, he said, | 0:50:55 | 0:50:59 | |
"I got lost somewhere between, er, vodka and vine, dear. | 0:50:59 | 0:51:03 | |
"Between vodka and vine!" | 0:51:03 | 0:51:04 | |
# You've got to know Got to know where you're going... # | 0:51:04 | 0:51:12 | |
He was literally going west, | 0:51:12 | 0:51:15 | |
from fashionable Chelsea, he moved first to Fulham, | 0:51:15 | 0:51:18 | |
then to Shepherd's Bush, | 0:51:18 | 0:51:20 | |
before finally fetching up in a first-floor flat in Acton. | 0:51:20 | 0:51:24 | |
There used to be an off-licence on the corner | 0:51:24 | 0:51:26 | |
and there's one next door still, so his joke was, | 0:51:26 | 0:51:29 | |
"I only moved there because it was between two off-licences," | 0:51:29 | 0:51:32 | |
because it was easy for him to get booze, you know, | 0:51:32 | 0:51:34 | |
when he was on the sauce, you know, so that was a family joke, you know. | 0:51:34 | 0:51:38 | |
# You mustn't show... # | 0:51:38 | 0:51:41 | |
He never stopped working, but now, other activities took priority. | 0:51:41 | 0:51:45 | |
If you're staying up most of the night, | 0:51:47 | 0:51:50 | |
and you're getting stoned, and you're drinking too much, | 0:51:50 | 0:51:53 | |
and you're worrying about sex and getting sex, | 0:51:53 | 0:51:56 | |
and organising it and arranging it, this, that, | 0:51:56 | 0:52:01 | |
when do you write? | 0:52:01 | 0:52:03 | |
# And draws her dream... # | 0:52:03 | 0:52:06 | |
I don't think any alcoholic knows really why they drink. | 0:52:06 | 0:52:09 | |
It's, er, it's an invisible line you cross. | 0:52:09 | 0:52:11 | |
Either you are, or you aren't, | 0:52:11 | 0:52:13 | |
but once you've crossed it, there's no going back. | 0:52:13 | 0:52:16 | |
Lionel got up to, um, I think in excess | 0:52:16 | 0:52:18 | |
of a couple of bottles of brandy, a couple of bottles of vodka a day, | 0:52:18 | 0:52:22 | |
and that's heavy drinking. | 0:52:22 | 0:52:25 | |
Something has to give. | 0:52:25 | 0:52:27 | |
He was a very intelligent man and he said, | 0:52:29 | 0:52:32 | |
"This is outrageous, I'm losing everything, | 0:52:32 | 0:52:34 | |
"and I look at myself in the mirror and I don't like what I see." | 0:52:34 | 0:52:38 | |
You know, "I've got nothing to wear!" He had no clothes! | 0:52:38 | 0:52:41 | |
He couldn't afford anything! | 0:52:41 | 0:52:43 | |
The bed had to have bricks put underneath it, | 0:52:43 | 0:52:45 | |
because it was broken, a couple of house bricks to hold it up! | 0:52:45 | 0:52:49 | |
He hadn't bought any sheets in ages! | 0:52:49 | 0:52:51 | |
Everything was burnt, cos he burnt all the sheets | 0:52:51 | 0:52:53 | |
with the cigarette smoking, that sort of thing! | 0:52:53 | 0:52:55 | |
I mean, he was becoming like a derelict! | 0:52:55 | 0:52:58 | |
And he just said, "This can't go on!" | 0:52:58 | 0:53:00 | |
The remarkable thing was that so many of his friends stuck by him. | 0:53:01 | 0:53:06 | |
In the early '80s, with their help, | 0:53:06 | 0:53:08 | |
Lionel started on the slow process of rehab. | 0:53:08 | 0:53:11 | |
There were clinics, counselling, crises, | 0:53:11 | 0:53:13 | |
before he finally pulled himself back into the real world. | 0:53:13 | 0:53:17 | |
In 1989, he signalled his return with this! | 0:53:17 | 0:53:21 | |
# Something for the drive... # WHISTLING | 0:53:21 | 0:53:25 | |
# Something for the beach | 0:53:25 | 0:53:28 | |
-# Have a dip inside -It's all within the reach... # | 0:53:29 | 0:53:33 | |
It was the start of a modest, but extraordinary comeback, | 0:53:33 | 0:53:37 | |
writing and starring in this commercial for the Abbey National. | 0:53:37 | 0:53:41 | |
The song was classic Bart - catchy, simple and seemingly effortless. | 0:53:41 | 0:53:46 | |
I'd not seen him for ages and, suddenly, there he was! | 0:53:47 | 0:53:51 | |
And we all thought, "Oh, good, everything's OK again," you know. | 0:53:51 | 0:53:55 | |
-# Think of what you have got -Doo-doo, doodle-ee-doo! | 0:53:55 | 0:53:58 | |
-# Instead of what you have not -Doo-doo, doodle-ee-doo! # | 0:53:58 | 0:54:02 | |
Retitled Happy Endings, it was released as a single. | 0:54:02 | 0:54:06 | |
It only made number 68 in the charts, but it was widely whistled. | 0:54:06 | 0:54:11 | |
- ALL: # ..now! Now! # - CHILD: # Now-oh! # | 0:54:11 | 0:54:13 | |
'Happy Endings, for me, was magic. All the other songs' | 0:54:13 | 0:54:18 | |
were wonderful, don't get me wrong, | 0:54:18 | 0:54:20 | |
but that song, I thought, he showed that, | 0:54:20 | 0:54:23 | |
after all those years, he still had it in him | 0:54:23 | 0:54:26 | |
to come up with a great melody line. | 0:54:26 | 0:54:29 | |
-As a song, it stood out. -SONG CONTINUES | 0:54:29 | 0:54:33 | |
Sober and smiling, he started proper work on big projects | 0:54:33 | 0:54:37 | |
that had been gathering dust for years. | 0:54:37 | 0:54:40 | |
Quasimodo, based on the Hunchback of Notre Dame. | 0:54:40 | 0:54:43 | |
La Strada, based on the Fellini film. | 0:54:43 | 0:54:46 | |
And Gulliver's Travels. | 0:54:46 | 0:54:48 | |
But the public still bayed for the old hits. | 0:54:48 | 0:54:51 | |
So, in 1993, Cameron Mackintosh announced a major new production | 0:54:51 | 0:54:55 | |
of Oliver!, with new sets, new orchestrations, | 0:54:55 | 0:54:58 | |
a budget of £4 million, a young hotshot director, Sam Mendes, | 0:54:58 | 0:55:02 | |
choreographer Matthew Bourne and Lionel, back on board | 0:55:02 | 0:55:06 | |
-to make the changes required. -CAST SINGING | 0:55:06 | 0:55:09 | |
# ..always the chance to be somebody to foot the bill... # | 0:55:09 | 0:55:13 | |
Lionel was working! | 0:55:13 | 0:55:15 | |
He was eating, rather than drinking, and he was happy. | 0:55:15 | 0:55:19 | |
By then, Cameron Mackintosh had become co-owner of Lionel's rights | 0:55:19 | 0:55:23 | |
to Oliver!, on the condition, which was readily agreed, | 0:55:23 | 0:55:26 | |
that Lionel would be given back a share of his royalties. | 0:55:26 | 0:55:30 | |
# ..one of us! # MUSIC STOPS | 0:55:30 | 0:55:34 | |
CHEERING | 0:55:34 | 0:55:36 | |
Cameron Mackintosh didn't have to do that. | 0:55:36 | 0:55:38 | |
He did it as an act of kindness. | 0:55:38 | 0:55:40 | |
That gave back Lionel his dignity and it gave him a purpose in life. | 0:55:40 | 0:55:45 | |
Um, Oliver! was back, and he had money again. | 0:55:45 | 0:55:48 | |
HARMONISING | 0:55:48 | 0:55:51 | |
'I can't imagine, however much he was to blame, how awful it must be' | 0:55:51 | 0:55:55 | |
to have created something so extraordinary, | 0:55:55 | 0:55:59 | |
and so affecting as Oliver!, and not feel you own it any more. | 0:55:59 | 0:56:04 | |
CHEERING | 0:56:04 | 0:56:06 | |
-GLORIA HUNNIFORD: -Will you welcome | 0:56:06 | 0:56:08 | |
the man responsible for all these wonderful songs? Lionel Bart! | 0:56:08 | 0:56:11 | |
APPLAUSE | 0:56:11 | 0:56:12 | |
BAND PLAYS: "Consider Yourself" | 0:56:12 | 0:56:14 | |
He'd reached, near as dammit, a form of serenity, | 0:56:18 | 0:56:22 | |
slotting himself comfortably | 0:56:22 | 0:56:23 | |
into his new role of elder statesman of musical theatre. | 0:56:23 | 0:56:27 | |
# And when that happens I'm gonna hold you... # | 0:56:27 | 0:56:34 | |
'The last few years, he did start enjoying himself' | 0:56:34 | 0:56:38 | |
and it was a joy to see it! | 0:56:38 | 0:56:40 | |
'He started really valuing his life.' | 0:56:40 | 0:56:45 | |
# ..again! # | 0:56:45 | 0:56:53 | |
APPLAUSE AND CHEERING | 0:56:53 | 0:56:56 | |
But the years lost to drink and drugs had taken their toll. | 0:56:59 | 0:57:04 | |
'In the last few years of his life, he was a very sick man at the end.' | 0:57:04 | 0:57:08 | |
But he'd wrecked his body and his mind with, er... | 0:57:08 | 0:57:12 | |
He had an overdose of life, really. | 0:57:12 | 0:57:14 | |
One of the country's most popular songwriters, Lionel Bart, | 0:57:16 | 0:57:19 | |
has died at a London hospital. | 0:57:19 | 0:57:21 | |
-# What can you do... # -'He was 68.' | 0:57:21 | 0:57:23 | |
# And what have you got to be a performer? # | 0:57:23 | 0:57:26 | |
HE HARMONISES | 0:57:26 | 0:57:28 | |
Lionel Bart's songs have buried themselves | 0:57:28 | 0:57:31 | |
deep in the collective unconscious. They never were high art | 0:57:31 | 0:57:36 | |
or anything like it. They were so much better than that. | 0:57:36 | 0:57:40 | |
So let us be proud of Lionel and let Lionel, at last, | 0:57:40 | 0:57:43 | |
be properly proud of himself. | 0:57:43 | 0:57:47 | |
'If Lionel was here now, and you were making a documentary about it, | 0:57:47 | 0:57:51 | |
'he'd pretend, "Oh, darling, I don't want all that.' | 0:57:51 | 0:57:54 | |
"Don't be silly." But deep down, he would be loving it. | 0:57:54 | 0:57:58 | |
Because we're in show business! | 0:57:58 | 0:58:00 | |
Yeah, he would be pleased, yeah, yeah. | 0:58:00 | 0:58:02 | |
Probably wouldn't be too pleased with some of the things I said, | 0:58:02 | 0:58:04 | |
but he'd know it was all true anyway! | 0:58:04 | 0:58:06 | |
Oh, he'd tell you to fuck off! | 0:58:06 | 0:58:08 | |
But then, at the same time, he'd hog the camera. | 0:58:08 | 0:58:12 | |
He'd say, "Well, nah, none of you know anything. | 0:58:12 | 0:58:15 | |
"Don't know nothing. | 0:58:17 | 0:58:18 | |
"You don't know me." | 0:58:20 | 0:58:21 | |
# Isn't this where we came in Isn't this where we found out | 0:58:27 | 0:58:31 | |
# What the picture's all about? | 0:58:31 | 0:58:32 | |
# Let's get up, get out and shout! | 0:58:32 | 0:58:35 | |
# To the lovers lining up Is it worth the agent's price? | 0:58:35 | 0:58:39 | |
# Yes, the happy days were nice Now why see the thing round twice? | 0:58:39 | 0:58:43 | |
# Yeah, she does break down and cry Yes, he leaves her on the floor | 0:58:43 | 0:58:46 | |
# Saying as he slams the door "I won't tell them no more!" | 0:58:46 | 0:58:51 | |
# Are they goose bumps on your skin Are you holding back your grin? | 0:58:51 | 0:58:55 | |
# Any Oscars left to win Isn't this where we came in? # | 0:58:55 | 0:59:02 | |
Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd | 0:59:06 | 0:59:09 | |
FLAMENCO-STYLE MUSIC, GUNSHOT ECHOES | 0:59:09 | 0:59:12 |