CELEBRATING LIONEL BART at JW3

★★★

“the star of the evening is Michaela Stern who beautifully concludes the show”

“There are many lyrics which wouldn’t get past the sensitivity reader these days” quips Nigel Planer before launching into a tongue-in-cheek rendition of Lionel Bart’s ‘Living Doll’. He singles out the line “Gonna lock her up in a trunk…”. When Cliff Richard sang it back in 1959 nobody would have batted an eyelid. When Planer revisited the song with his fellow ‘Young Ones’ for Comic Relief in 1986, he turned the dodginess into plain silliness, ad libbing with “I feel sorry for the elephant”, which became a bit of a catchphrase.

There was more than one elephant in the room at “Celebrating Lionel Bart” – a musical tribute to the great songwriter. Director Adam Lenson, one of many talking heads projected onto the back wall, drew attention to the accusations of antisemitism that Charles Dickens faced after publishing ‘Oliver Twist’ on which Bart based the musical drama ‘Oliver!’. But controversy aside, the evening settled into a light-hearted, nostalgic and gentle homage to the man Andrew Lloyd Webber once described as ‘the father of the modern British musical’.

A handful of songs were interspersed with video projections displaying a few famous faces – Tommy Steele, Cliff Richard, Anita Harris among them. Mildly informative, they were little more than a garnish; the focus being on the onstage performers. Jos Slovick is first up with the aptly titled ‘A Handful of Songs’, giving a wistful touch to the number with the purity of his voice. Brady Isaacs Pearce delves into ‘What is Love?’ from ‘Oliver!’ with an airy beauty and vulnerability, while Debbie Chazen tackles ‘So Tell Me’ (a lesser-known number from Bart’s ‘Blitz!’) with more character than virtuosity. Nigel Planer has fun with ‘Reviewing the Situation’, but the star of the evening is Michaela Stern who beautifully concludes the show with ‘As Long as He Needs Me’. Stern also gives us another highlight with Bart’s unproduced ‘Nobody in Particular’.

We have a well-balanced cross section of Bart’s repertoire, including his 60s pop hits and his Bond theme, ‘From Russia with Love’. During the latter, Musical Director Theo Jamieson truly shines. The grand piano is the sole accompaniment and Jamieson draws out the different character of each number with an understated flair and intuition. The shades and nuances are matched by the singers’ delivery, but unfortunately are let down with a somewhat flat sound through the in-house sound system. We are never too sure if this lack of sparkle is a reflection, or a cause, of the low energy that pervades the performances.

There are moments of beauty, but the atmosphere is thin, and the songs have little room to breathe fully. A rather damp encore invites the audience to sing along to ‘Fings Ain’t Wot They Used T’Be’. We get a hint of the cheeky chappie that Lionel Bart epitomised. Yet we never get beneath the skin. The show is a polite recital rather than a celebration. Bart was a complicated character. The darling of the sixties who later withdrew from the limelight; bankrupt, diabetic and alcoholic. He never really recovered from ‘Oliver’s!’ success, even though he still managed to stir hearts when he spoke to audiences directly through song. This evening’s showcase of his work doesn’t quite speak to us in the way he might have wanted. Yet it is a faithful rendition and we do get a sense – if not the true scent – of Lionel Bart’s impact on the British musical theatre scene.