The Beatles’ Please Please Me: Remaking a Classic

Fri Feb 15, 9-10pm, BBC4

By Gabriel Tate Fri Feb 8 2013

They sound deceptively simple, but we suspect this peculiar-sounding experiment may prove how fiendishly difficult Beatles songs can be to cover. Will Stereophonics, Joss Stone or Mick Hucknall be up to the task? Stuart Maconie will be finding out, as they join others including Graham Coxon and Squeeze masterminds Difford and Tilbrook in taking a song each and replicating the 12-hour session that produced the Fab Four’s debut album.

Celebrity fans will be explaining the enduring brilliance of the record, while a few fringe survivors from the session (no Paul or Ringo, sadly) will be reminiscing in the manner of George Martin from that sketch in ‘Big Train’. No previews were available but, if nothing else, there’ll be plenty of reflected glory to bask in as Hucknall and co try and fail to emulate everything from the ebullience of ‘I Saw Her Standing There’ to the raw commitment of ‘Twist and Shout’.

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(2 ratings)

What a pointless idea. The covers were crap. This idea has been tried before and never has worked. The Beatles, not surprisingly, are the best at The Beatles. Half of the idiots on this show tried too hard to emote and destroyed the song in the process.

james lizard Fri Feb 22
Rated as: 1/5
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Wonderfully and predictably inept. Surprised if Messrs Starr and McCartney don't complain bitterly. Laughably dire performances. I suppose the only vaguely redeeming act were the Stereophonics. But - good for a laugh

will Sat Feb 16
Rated as: 2/5
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