The Beatles and Brian Epstein at the A Hard Day's Night premiere
IT WAS May 1962 and a young Liverpool entrepreneur was introduced to a London record producer.
The entrepreneur, a certain Brian Epstein, had been trying to get the group he managed a recording contract, until then without any success.
But their original music piqued the interest of Parlophone’s George Martin, producer of mostly classical music and comedy records, who agreed to audition “the boys”.
And the rest, as they say, is history.
Love Me Do, the first of two new plays celebrating the life of Brian Epstein in this Beatles 50th anniversary year, opens at the Unity theatre next month.
“It’s not another Beatles show or play – and certainly not a live musical show,” explains writer and producer David Crosby.
“It tells the story of Brian, having recently lost his father, alone in his London flat looking back on his life – his failures and his achievements – from what would be his final weekend during the Bank Holiday in August 1967.”
Epstein died of an overdose of sleeping pills on August 27, 1967.
The play, presented by Rox Theatre and Hand-In-Hand Theatre and directed by Brian McCann, looks at Epstein’s life from his erratic and unsuccessful schooling through National Service, a year at RADA, and a failed attempt to forge a career as an actor before settling into successfully running a record department in the family furniture shop NEMS.
He discovers the thriving and unique beat scene in the city and reflects on the year of struggle against the odds to convince disinterested record executives that this new Liverpool group are going to be ‘as big as Elvis’.
David adds: “Although ‘the boys’ themselves aren’t represented in the play, a number of local personalities of the time are, such as Bill Harry, Bob Wooler, Sam Leach, and Allan Williams – all characters in the early 60s Liverpool Merseybeat scene.”
Love Me Do is at the Unity Theatre from September 13-15.
That Hippie Penny Lane
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