Please Please Me
Who would the Fab Four be without their fifth member? Would Beatlemania have existed at all? Would their US success have even been possible? And those albums – would they have given it all up before they’d had the chance to create the likes of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band or Revolver?
In Tom Wright’s play, the band steps back from their microphones, allowing the spotlight to fall instead on Brian Epstein – their manager, and the man who first discovered their raw genius and propelled it into global superstardom. Tracking his discovery of the band at the Cavern Club, Wright’s bio-drama shows us the belief Epstein had in the band from the very beginning, as well as the role he played in shaping them into the group the world came to know. But as the Beatles rise – playing bigger shows to ever more frenzied fans – Epstein falls, descending into a life fuelled by sex and addiction.
Most of all, Please, Please Me is a kind of love story between Epstein and John Lennon. In fact, Lennon is the only member of the Beatles we actually see on stage in this production, directed by Kiln boss Amit Sharma. When Epstein first sets eyes on the band, it is Lennon’s shadowy figure that emerges, lit by the stage lights and dressed in leather. While the other ‘boys’ are mentioned in passing, this is an all-blinkers on exploration of Epstein’s infatuation with Lennon.
Of course, creative licence shapes the central relationship. But Epstein was a gay man at a time when homosexuality was...