Around the Beatles

Around the Beatles was a 1964 television special featuring the Beatles, produced by Jack Good for ITV/Rediffusion London. It was taped in Wembley Park Studios and are now known as Fountain Studios in London on 19 April 1964, and broadcast internationally, with its initial airing on 6 May 1964, and in the US on the ABC network on 15 November. The show featured other performers as well, with the Beatles providing backing vocals for some of them.

Performances

The show opens on an image of the Globe Theatre, with Ringo Starr unfurling a flag with the legend "Around the Beatles". The studio setting is arranged as a theatre in the round, (hence the show's name) echoing the seating arrangement of the Globe. The opening act is a humorous rendition of the "play within a play", Pyramus and Thisbe (Act V, Scene I) from William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, with Paul McCartney as Pyramus, John Lennon as his lover Thisbe, George Harrison as Moonshine, and Starr as Lion,^[1] and also features Trevor Peacock in the role of Quince.

The Beatles

• "Twist and Shout"
• "Roll Over Beethoven"
• "I Wanna Be Your Man"
• "Long Tall Sally"
• "Love Me Do/Please Please Me/From Me to You/She Loves You/I Want to Hold Your Hand" (Medley)
• "Can't Buy Me Love"
• "Shout"

Other acts

• Long John Baldry: "Got My Mojo Working" (with the Beatles as backup singers offstage in the audience balcony)
• P.J. Proby with the Vernons Girls: "Walking the Dog", "Cumberland Gap", "I Believe"
• The Vernons Girls featuring Jean Owen, "Only You Can Do It"
• Baldry and Vernons Girls, Medley: "Night Train/Lover Please/I'm Movin' On/Forty Days/Money (That's What I Want)/Hit the Road Jack"
• Cilla Black: "Saved", "You're My World", "Heat Wave"
• Sounds Incorporated
• Millie: "My Boy Lollipop", "Tom Hark"

Production

• Harry Robinson – Musical Associate
• Brian Epstein – Production Associate
• Roy Stannard – Designer
• Rita Gillespie – Director
• Jack Good – Producer

Legacy

The special was released as a bootleg video by Media Home Entertainment. A video segment from the special appears in the The Beatles Anthology documentary film. Songs from the special appear on the Anthology 1 compilation. The Beatles' musical set features the only recorded performance of "Shout" by the group. The footage of them singing "Can't Buy Me Love" is now included on the video disk of the 2015 reissue of the compilation 1.

References

• The Rough Guide to the Beatles, Chris Ingham. Penguin Books, third edition, 2009
• The Unreleased Beatles: Music & Film, Richie Unterberger. San Francisco: Backbeat Books, 2006 (p. 93)

External links

• Around the Beatles at the Internet Movie Database
• Around the Beatles at The Beatles Bible website