ABSTRACT
Curiously, neither the musical Oliver! nor Lionel Bart has received the critical atten tion each deserves. Every year important scholarly work appears on Stephen Sondheim or on Rodgers and Hammerstein. But despite the historical importance and artistic achievement of Oliver! and despite Bart’s other musical theater contributions and his many hits as a popular song writer, Bart and his work remain largely unexamined, except for the occasional biographical profile outlining his wild days.8 It’s not hard to see why this past would interest people. The biography is full of astonishing details. His beginnings were poor. Of his parents’ eleven children, only seven survived to adult hood. Bart was the youngest child of lewish immigrants who fled from a pogrom in Galicia. His father was a tailor, a profession taken up by all Bart’s surviving siblings. Bart received virtually no formal training in music, which he could not read. He com posed by singing tunes into a tape recorder, apparently keeping one in every room in the house in case inspiration struck. His first musical theater hit was Fings Ain't Wot They Used T'Be, a Cockney musical for which he wrote the lyrics; it was still running when Oliver! premiered.
