Show brings back the sweet sounds of the Beatles
But don’t expect a musical on the story of the Liverpudlian band and its meteoric rise to global domination. Company manager of the show, Neil White, makes a virtue of the fact that the show is a gig rather than a musical drama.
“It’s great that it hasn’t got a big storyline behind it,” says White. “It’s purely a theatrical celebration of the music which is really refreshing. You get a lot of shows, such as the story of the Spice Girls. But at the end of the day, what do people go to these shows for? They want the music.”
There are television screens flanking both sides of the stage showing news footage of the era. The opening setting conveys The Cavern in Liverpool where the Beatles played in their early days.
White says that the ‘Let It Be’ band has a sound system “that The Beatles could only have dreamed of. About 25 guitars are used in the show. They all have to be cleaned and tuned constantly. There’s a massive lighting rig.”
He also believes that attention to detail is vital. For example, the badges worn on the colourful military styles suits for Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Heart Club’s Band had to be exact.
Apart from occasional interjections to the audience, the band plays for about two hours, sounding just like the Beatles. As it happens, one member of this jukebox musical, Reuven Gershon, who plays John Lennon, looks rather like the tragic star.
“Playing Lennon is something I’ve always enjoyed doing,” says Gershon. “There are lots of ways of portraying him. I try to include as much of his personality as possible. He was a rebel, he was funny, he could be serious, he took drugs, he was in love with Yoko Ono and had energy and charm as an entertainer. I try to remember as many of those things as I can.”
He even gets to sign autographs. “Just because people see you in a show, they come to the stage door at the end looking for autographs. I always sign my own name and write ‘John’ in brackets.”
James Fox, who plays Paul McCartney, says the age group of audiences is right across the board. “It’s not unlike that of most theatre audiences. You get people bringing their children and grandchildren. A lot of older people are encouraging younger people to come, just to keep the music of the Beatles alive.”
To get into the role of McCartney, Fox jokes that it’s all in the eyebrows. “A couple of nights before the show started, I studied his character like you’d do for any acting role. Obviously, the music has to be right, but audiences also have a very clear idea in their minds of the characters. We studied the band members by looking at photographs and all the old footage, taking note of the various mannerisms. Then you put on the costumes and the wig and get in the zone like you’d do in any other show.”
Actor and session musician,Luke Roberts, who plays Ringo, says it’s more difficult to play the drummer “because at least with fictional characters you can put your own spin on it. There’s not much room for our own personal input in this show. You can’t be messing around with it. There’s millions of bands doing the Beatles. Nobody is doing what we’re doing. People coming to see us will spot things such as what position a particular chord should be played in. It’s endless. You’re always learning stuff.”
Stephen Hill, a musician, who plays George Harrison, has toured internationally with the likes of the Beatles’ old pals, Gerry and the Pacemakers, The Searchers and the Swinging Blue Jeans. He is very proud to be part of Let It Be.
“We’ve got it right. It’s got to be right because it’s the Beatles,” he says.
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