Blitz!

Blitz!
Original Cast Album
MusicLionel Bart
LyricsLionel Bart
BookLionel Bart
Joan Maitland
Productions1962 West End
1990 West End revival
1990 UK Tour
2000 West End revival
2020 Off West End revival

Blitz! is a musical by Lionel Bart. The musical, described by Steven Suskin as "massive", was set in the East End of London during the Blitz (the aerial bombings during World War II). The story drew on Bart's childhood memories of London's Jewish East End during the Blitz and, like most musicals, centred on a romance between a young couple, in this case a Jewish woman and a Cockney man, although the largest role and main point-of-view character is that of Mrs Blitztein, the young woman's mother.[1] Steven Suskin describes it as "Abie's Irish Rose set against the burning of Atlanta."[2] Bart himself described the play as "…three human stories inside an epic canvas; the major human conflict – the major plot – personifies the spirit of London and how that spirit developed during the period of the piece."[3]

  1. ^ Suskin 2005, Mandelbaum 2005.
  2. ^ Suskin 2005.
  3. ^ Mandelbaum 2005