John, Paul, George, Ringo… & Bert

‘The four most loved, courted, wealthy people in the world stumble towards their downfall: as with King Oedipus, it is the height they must fall that moves us. Like him, their fate is unavoidable, like the Greek audience we know the story, know the end.

"It's all gone shitty again," Lennon, dejected sits amongst the ruins of someone's bright idea for the great reunion.’

Adrian Henri - Plays and Players Magazine

Awards

London - 1974

Evening Standard - Best Musical

London Critics’ Award - Best Musical

“It was a very different time to today. Liverpool had completely and utterly turned its back on The Beatles — they were a group that had split up, end of story. There was no idea at the time that they would ever become this massive cultural / historical feature of Liverpool life; this is 1974, the Beatles had been this huge phenomenon. The Beatle thing had happened and now they were then dead and gone; all one knew was that there were a few people kind of propping up bars and still being boring about ‘When I was this for the Beatles,’ or ‘When I was that for the Beatles’ — no one wanted to hear those stories because they weren’t really about the Beatles, they were more about drawing attention to whoever was speaking, so it was in that atmosphere that I was approached to write my piece.”

Willy Russell - in conversation with John Bennett

John, Paul, George, Ringo… & Bert told the story of The Beatles from their formation to a fictional reunion through the eyes of the narrator Bert McGhee a box stacker who claimed to have been one of the group in the days of The Quarrymen until he confused an A minor chord with a G seventh.

“Alan Dossor, the Everyman Theatre director, was very sceptical about a folk singer doing Beatles numbers, but Willy didn't want four blokes trying to recreate the music because there would be direct comparisons with The Beatles themselves. He had this inspired idea that I should sing the music in it, and that was what took me to the theatre in Liverpool for the first time. Nobody knew me because I was a jobbing folk singer but the company company were a fantastic support. they got the piano from the bistro downstairs and put it on stage on a truck. It was so high, I had to sit on a bar stool to play it. I was nervous but the They even came to see me do a gig at a traditional folk club in Rock Ferry.”

Barbara Dickson

The show opened in Hope Street on 21 May 1974. It had been commissioned, written and staged within four months. John Lennon sent a taped message of good wishes addressed to ‘Bert’. Hughie Ross of the Liverpool Echo reviewed the opening night, writing: “Documentary, comedy-drama at its brightest and with an earthy script that is bold, brash and sometimes bawdy. Judging by the enthusiastic reception at the close, it would seem that Beatlemania may be revived again, at least in the vicinity of Hope Street, for some time.”

Original Production

Liverpool Everyman Theatre, 1974

Producer - Liverpool Everyman

Director - Alan Dossor

Designer - Graham Barkworth

Cast

Paul McCartney - Trevor Eve
George Harrison - Philip Joseph
Ringo Star - Anthony Sher
John Lennon - Bernard Hill
Bert - George Costigan
Brian Epstein - Robin Hooper

With: Nick Stringer, Valerie Lilley, Linda Beckett, Elizabeth Estensen, Helen Brammer, Cengiz Saner

Songs performed by Barbara Dickson, Robert Ash, Terry Canning

"Even at the time, without any benefit of hindsight one just knew what an extraordinary company of visceral young actors Alan Dossor had assembled at the Everyman. As well as Bernard Hill and Tony Sher there was Johnathan Pryce, Alison Steadman, George Costigan, Trevor Eve, Liz Estensen, Phil Joseph, Matthew Kelly, Pete Postlethwaite, Julie Walters, Bill Nighy... awesome really.”

Celebrated theatre producer, Michael Codron joined forces with Jesus Christ Superstar producer, Robert Stigwood, transferring the Liverpool Everyman production to London, where it opened at the Lyric Theatre in the West End on 15 August 1974.

London, The Lyric Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue. 1974

Producers - Michael Codron & Robert Stigwood

Director - Alan Dossor

Designer - Graham Barkworth

Cast

John Lennon - Bernard Hill
Paul McCartney - Trevor Eve
George Harrison – Philip Joseph
Ringo Star - Anthony Sher
Bert - George Costigan
Brian Epstein - Robin Hooper

With: Elizabeth Estensen, Nick Stringer, Barry Woolgar, Dick Haydon, Ian Jentle, Linda Beckett, Valerie Lilley, Luan Peters

“It is a very funny show. Exhilarating at times. It is no publicity job for The Beatles. Their warts, indiscretions and mistakes are there for all to see — so are their exploiters. The dialogue hits pretty hard; there’s nothing phoney about it.”

Arthur Thirkell – Daily Mirror

“Normally…it takes 20 years or more for a decade to settle into a period. But already the sixties are taking on the lure of a pleasure garden from which we have been locked out; and, although others have chronicled the Beatles at epic length, this is the first version that does real justice to the story.”

Irving Wardle – The Times

In January 1975, the show landed the Evening Standard award for best musical of 1974. “I thought of getting up and asking them what they were on about,” Russell told an interviewer in 1983, “After all, the music and lyrics were by Lennon and McCartney!”

Following its success in the West End, two national UK tours of John Paul George Ringo… & Bert were mounted - both produced by a very young Cameron Mackintosh.

Brighton, The Gardner Centre - followed by various venues throughout the UK. 1975

Producer - Cameron Mackintosh

Director - Robert Walker

Cast

John Lennon - Stephen Mackenna
Paul McCartney - Ian Sharp
George Harrison - Lloyd Johnson
Ringo Starr - George Panther
Bert - Alan Hunter
Brian Epstein - Brian Jameson

Songs performed by - Eileen Woodman.

Musicians - Geoff Sharkey, Lyn Edwards

Newcastle, Theatre Royal/Venues throughout the UK. 1976

Producer - Cameron Mackintosh

Director - Gareth Morgan

Cast

As above but with following changes:

Paul McCartney - Nigel Hughes

Bert - Arthur Kelly

Arts Desk Interview with Jasper Rees

I want to ask you about your Beatles play

It’s very rarely revived. We certainly would have revived it in Liverpool if the music had still been available. We originally did it when ATV was controlling the music and Robert Stigwood was producing it and so was able to call in the right kind of favours to get the rights to the music. And then about 10 years after, someone tried to do a production in Sweden and couldn’t get the rights. It was around the time that Paul decided he wanted to have control over all that Beatles stuff. I didn’t feel sufficiently strongly about it to make an effort to get the music. For the time it was perfect. I only realised five years ago that it was the first jukebox musical. I’d not even been aware of that. In fact we had done other shows at the Everyman where we’d used catalogues. But because we didn’t do them as a disguised concert, because narrative was very important, we didn't think of it as a catalogue or jukebox musical. Somebody wanted to do it about 10 years ago and I looked it and yes it would hold up but I’d much rather come out to see a new show written by some punk kid who had the same kind of abrasive attitude that I had when I wrote it back in ‘74 that found its way into the work rather than present a museum piece.

How were the Beatles themselves about allowing you to do it? Did you have contact with them?

No, I had no contact with them whatsoever but I’d been 14 at the Cavern in the ‘62 period and spent most of my last year at school immersed in all that kind of thing. But I was 14, they were 18, 19. You know, I could never have mixed with them. The nearest I ever got was standing at a coffee bar and John Lennon was there ordering a coke and a hotdog - because there was no alcohol in the Cavern. And I remember he opened his coke and it spilled over me and I apologised. I had no personal contact with them until after I’d written John, Paul, George, Ringo and Bert.”