John, Paul, George, Ringo ... and Bert (Original Cast Recording)

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Rolling Stone asked George if the musical was an insult to the memory. “No,” he replied. “I just feel sorry for Robert Stigwood, the Bee Gees and Pete Frampton for doing it, because they had established themselves in their own right as decent artists and suddenly . . . it’s like the classic thing of greed. Could there be a more relaxing and agreeable way of spending an hour than in the company of five middle-aged tearaways from Liverpool? Antony Sher, who has died at the age of 72, was a man of staggering versatility. As well as being a brilliant actor, he was an accomplished artist and writer. But, far from being separate, his three careers all fed into each other: you only to have to look at his sketches of Richard III in his book Year of the King to see how his draughtsman’s eye enriched his performance. Gifted in numerous ways, Sher also saw his acting career as one that evolved from impersonation to embodiment of a character. Within two weeks, I’d gone out and bought what I thought was a guitar. It was a plank with wires on, basically!” George Harrison stated that he saw the play with Derek Taylor. He disliked it. [3] He walked out while of the London premiere and withdrew his permission to use his song " Here Comes the Sun". [4] It was replaced with " Good Day Sunshine". [5]

George Harrison was not a fan of the 1974 musical John, Paul, George, Ringo, and Bert. He hated when people ripped The Beatles off. However, sometimes, Beatles musicals and films only happened because the band didn’t look after their interests following their split. Actors in the 1974 musical ‘John, Paul, George, Ringo and Bert’ | Wiggy/Mirrorpix/Getty Images George Harrison on the musical ‘John, Paul, George, Ringo, and Bert’ Despite the theatre’s shabby appearance, writers and performers of the city embraced it. “We really believed we could change things with our work and make things better,” artistic director Alan Dossor told Radio 4’s The Reunion in 2004. Dossor took on his position in 1970, coming with a reputation for committing to radical causes. “We were trying to get a young, articulate, working class audience,” he said. Willy Russell's first novel, The Wrong Boy, was published in 2000. Russell has provided the musical scores for the feature films, Shirley Valentine, Dancin' Thru The Dark and Mr Love, as well as for the TV series Connie and the television play Terraces. Willy Russell released his first album, Hoovering the Moon, in 2003. The Willy Russell archive Being playwrights, they know all about making each word count. But what they are doing here - cutting up and reassembling their selected prose then interspersing it with their own songs - offers them the chance to make their words count in altogether different ways… Both Russell and Firth have the kind of range that would allow them to turn their 90-minute concert in whatever direction they wanted. There’s the sublime (Living on the Never Never (Easy Terms) from Blood Brothers) and the joyous (She Give Me, and its highlights from Shirley Valentine).But the abiding memory of 'Words On The Run' is of these five grizzled geezers - "Our combined age may be 273, but we're still singing animals!" - shuffling off and returning after the interval still singing about Tupperware Girls with lovely hair who drink German wine and don't think much of Wittgestien but like to do the Hokey Cokey in their underwear. The Moose was a really important period for me though. I never for one second realised it at the time but I now see that from having to do that gig every Thursday I was learning all kinds of things about the nature of performance, about audiences, about what will and won't work, about how overwriting can kill a song (or, indeed, a play or any other form for that matter). Although none of us knew it at the time, all those folk places, cafes, pubs, old cellars were a fantastic training ground for all kinds of talent - it was a completely anti-commercial, anti music-establishment phenomenon.” LONG before the plays that made both their names, music was Willy Russell’s and Tim Firth’s first love. In this show, they return to it with a seven-piece band, lyrics to linger over and a dazzling overlay of words and music that you’d be hard-pressed to match. But there was one person that disliked the play: George Harrison. There is conflicting information as to when he saw the musical. Some things I read say that he saw it on opening night in Liverpool and Melody Maker says that he saw it in October of 1974 in London. Poets Roger McGough, Brian Patten and Adrian Henri, who were accompanied by singer-guitarist Andy Roberts, are seasoned Fringe performers and they delivered their warm, witty and wise verses and devastating one-liners with accustomed aplomb - but it was playwright Willy Russell who stole the show.

John, Paul, George, Ringo ... and Bert is a 1974 musical by Willy Russell based on the story of the Beatles.The role of the narrator Bert was played by Arthur Kelly. The Birmingham Daily Post’s review of the Wolverhampton show in April 1976 read: “The evening belongs to Arthur Kelly, as Bert. His flat tones punch home several telling lines in disenchanted contrast to the cacophonous electronic hysteria which intermittently signals the march of Beatlemania.” It also briefly ran in Ireland in 1977 and in the United States in 1985. [2] Creative team [ edit ] the Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Comedy for Educating Rita (1980) and for Shirley Valentine (1988) During the 1990s and 2000s, Willy Russell produced his first album, Hoovering the Moon, and performed on multiple tours, including Words on the Run with Merseybeat poets Adrian Henri, Brian Patten, Roger McGough, as well as the musician Andy Roberts and The Singing Playwrights with writer Tim Firth. He also wrote the screenplay for the film Dancin’ Thru The Dark, an adaptation of his play Stags and Hens and a novel entitled The Wrong Boy, to wide critical acclaim.

It was five actors with minimal lighting, in front of 150 truculent schoolkids who’d been dragged there reluctantly, but they’d do the Marilyn Monroe song and – silence. And then laughter… laughing at actors being 14-year-olds, saying dirty stuff and doing all those embarrassingboy-girl things. And then at the end, even just with a mimed gun, these kids were blown away. I saw it up until the intermission and then–­I saw it with my friend Derek Tay­lor, who’s a writer who used to work for Warner Bros. and Apple­–I said to him we either have to leave now or I’m gonna jump on that stage and throttle those peo­ple,” George said.I was widening my writing into other forms, and I wanted to take what I'd learned and what I loved about folk music into those other forms.” 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.”