Tag Archive: Ringo Starr


How Beatle people conquered America

EIGHT DAYS A WEEK  directed by Ron Howard (USA, 2016)

beatlesAfter all that has been written, sung and spoken about The Beatles do we really need another feel good film looking at aspects of their meteoric rise and enduring appeal?

Of course we do!

As an official Apple Corps production you know in advance that this will be another adoring, at times superficial, look at how four young men from Liverpool conquered America and the world. Only the most cynical will complain about this.

I guess the time will come when someone will expose a darker side to this rags to riches story that surely exists. The backstabbing that came soon after the band split, notably in John Lennon’s spiteful ‘How Do You Sleep?’, illustrate that life with the Beatle people was not always so shiny and happy as it appeared. Continue reading

THE BEATLES’ MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR REVISITED  BBC Two.

Fabs MysteryOn this Arena special, it was good to get another chance to see the complete TV film of The Beatles’ Magical Mystery Tour. A  documentary, containing interviews and behind the scenes footage, was also illuminating in helping to put the film in a social and historical context.

The last time I saw the film in its entirety was when it was first broadcast (in black and white) on Boxing Day in 1967. I was just eight  years old at the time so had only a vague memory of it.

I was too young to pick up on all the LSD inspired images but old enough to realise that it had what one of the film’s extras describes as “disconnected shots of weird things”.

What I do vividly recall is the scene with a stripper while The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah band are singing Death Cab For Cutie. The sight of bare breasts on a prime time TV slot at Christmas made a big impact on me.  My parents, who were also watching, were less impressed!

This is why I can endorse Ian Macdonald’s view, in his book Revolution In The Head, that: “Magical Mystery Tour marks the breakdown of the cross-generational consensus ………this is where parents began to part company with their sons and daughters over the group, rightly suspecting a drug-induced persuasion setting in” Continue reading