Let it Be the Beatles musical at the Prince of Wales theatre in London’s West End marks a rare triumph for shows in London based on the Fab Four.
The song-writing duo of McCartney and Lennon, the creative force behind The Beatles helped out at London’s 2012 Olympics. Paul McCartney helped open the 2012 London Olympics by appearing and singing live. Whilst John Lennon became a part of the Olympics closing ceremony in spirit and song.
A choir sang “Imagine,” followed by Lennon himself singing the song from the video. A cleverly sculptured likeness of Lennon was seen as the song ended.
John Lennon sculpture at the London Olympics Closing Ceremony
As recording artists The Beatles are the biggest selling act of all time with over 1 billion sales, their nearest rival being Elvis Presley. In terms of U.K. recording artists Elton John (fifth worldwide) and Led Zeppelin (6th worldwide) with 300 million sales apiece are their closest challengers. Elton John has tasted theatrical success, but not with songs he has recorded himself but rather with the scores that he has composed both for the Lion King and Billy Elliot. Surprisingly there have been no musical theatre attempts incorporating the music of Led Zeppelin.
Queen, with sales approaching 300 million and the seventh leading worldwide recording artists, are unique in bucking the trend by having success both as recording artists and through their music in the theatre with the West End hit We Will Rock You at the Dominion theatre.
The other major recording artists on the list Michael Jackson (3rd) has enjoyed some success with the musical Thriller Live at the Lyric theatre and Madonna (4th) had a ill-fated attempt when her film Desperately Seeking Susan was set to Blondie’s music.
Abba (8th worldwide) have enjoyed the greatest theatrical success with their music and songs featured in the internationally successfully Mamma Mia! now playing at the Novello theatre in London.
We await with eager anticipation the Pink Floyd (9th) musical!
Whilst there have been many attempts to stage the Beatles music, few have met with the same magnitude of success enjoyed by the Beatles music itself.
John Lennon co-wrote ‘In His Own Write’ with actor and director, Victor Spinetti, a project which appeared at London’s Old Vic theatre.
John, Paul, George, Ringo… & Bert was a 1974 musical by Liverpudlian playwright Willy Russell responsible also for hugely successful show in London Blood Brothers. John, Paul, George, Ringo and Bert was based on the story of The Beatles. It premiered at the Everyman Theatre in Liverpool in May 1974 where it ran for eight weeks and later moved to the Lyric Theatre in London in August 1974, where it ran for a year and was later named “Best Musical of 1974” by the Evening Standard. It featured the music of the Beatles performed by Barbara Dickson.
George Harrison so disliked the play that he walked out while attending the London premiere and withdrew his permission to use his song “Here Comes The Sun”. It was replaced with “Good Day Sunshine”.
Beatlemania was a Broadway musical revue featuring the music of The Beatles and focused on events and changing attitudes of the Sixties. A “Rockumentary”, advertised as “Not the Beatles, but an incredible simulation”, it ran from 1977 to 1979.
In 1993 a show called ‘Looking Through a Glass Onion – John Lennon in Word & Music’ ran at the Criterion Theatre in London’s West End from October 1993 to January 1994, inspired by the song “Glass Onion” from The Beatles 1968 double-album The Beatles, commonly known as The White Album. The song was written by John Lennon and credited to Lennon–McCartney. This is the first track on the White Album to feature Ringo Starr on drums. Starr briefly left the group during recording sessions for the album and was replaced on drums by Paul McCartney on both “Back in the U.S.S.R.” and “Dear Prudence.” A looped extract of the song ‘Glass Onion’ was constantly played in the Criterion foyer, much to the annoyance of the Box Office staff working there at the time, including yours truly (the writer of this article).
‘All You Need Is Love’ was a stage show in 2001 at the Queen’s theatre in London’s West End. It took Lennon and McCartney’s compositions and heavily re-orchestrated the songs rendering them virtually unrecognisable. The bizarre concept received much criticism and little commercial success. The song Let it Be was reconceived as a soul gospel anthem and was one of the few highlights of the show.
‘Lennon’ was a musical about the life of John Lennon and was notable for writer and director Scardino’s choice to be almost exclusively-based on Lennon’s own words and to focus on Lennon’s solo career, with no songs from the Lennon–McCartney catalogue. The musical first opened in San Francisco, California in April 2005, after which it saw a cancelled run in Boston and a radical rewrite. The show then had 42 previews and 49 performances on Broadway at the Broadhurst Theatre from August 2005. The role of Lennon was played by performers of both sexes. The use of multiple actors was scaled back after the San Francisco production, with the final rewrite having a single actor narrating Lennon’s story. Yoko Ono was actively involved in the production, retaining final script approval. The limited use of Beatles songs by the show’s creators was attributed to creative choices and not licensing issues. The show was not well received either by critics or audiences.
In Las Vegas there is a show called “Love” featuring both the music of the Beatles and performers from Cirque du Soleil. It is an amazing show but perhaps not strictly musical theatre.
Backbeat at the Duke of York’s theatre in London closed earlier this year in February after a short run. Based on the award-winning 1994 British film about the early years of the Beatles. ackbeat takes place during the Beatles “Hamburg Years” in the early 1960s before they were famous. It centres on a love triangle between Stuart Sutcliffe, the band’s original bass guitarist and his best friend, lead guitarist John Lennon and beatnik German photographer Astrid Kirchherr. Struggling with divided loyalties, Sutcliffe eventually chose Astrid and art over the Beatles and handed over his guitar to Paul McCartney just before Beatlemania took off. Sutcliffe died of a brain haemorrhage in Hamburg shortly after leaving the band. His portrait featured on the Beatles’ album cover for Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.
Backbeat unfortunately suffered through the limitations of the Beatles catalogue that were afforded to the show, as its focus was pre-hit Beatles the songs were from the Hamburg era and many of them covers and not actual Beatles compositions.
Meanwhile State-side the band Rain, so named after the Beatles B side to 1966 Beatles hit ‘Paperback writer’ , were delivering a perfect note-for-note performance as the Beatles live. It is this concept that has transferred from the USA and re-titled Let it Be. Featuring a whole host of Beatles classics, album tracks and hit singles including:
- All You Need Is Love
- Blackbird
- Come Together
- A Day In The Life
- Day Tripper
- Eleanor Rigby
- The End
- From Me to You
- Get Back
- Give Peace A Chance
- A Hard Day’s Night
- Help
- Here Comes The Sun
- Hey Jude
- I’m Happy Just to Dance with You
- In My Life
- I Wanna Hold Your Hand
- Let It Be
- Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds
- Magical Mystery Tour
- Please Please Me
- Revolution
- Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
- She Loves You
- Strawberry Fields Forever
- Twist And Shout
- When I’m 64
- While My Guitar Gently Weeps
- With A Little Help From My Friends
- Yesterday
Let it Be promises to be the most successful Beatles musical yet, albeit that it is only scheduled for a limited run at London’s Prince of Wales theatre ahead of the incoming Book of Mormon, the new musical from the creators of South Park.
