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West End Drum Roll for Beatles’ Backbeat???

Date: 26 July 2011

Beatlemania is back – or could be soon. Backbeat, the screen-to-stage adaptation of the 1994 Brit flick about the early years of the Beatles, is aiming for a West End premiere this autumn. The play, written and co-directed by the film’s creator Iain Softley, had its world premiere in February 2010 at Glasgow Citizens Theatre.

Set during ‘the Hamburg Years’ in the early 1960s before the band became successful and world famous, Backbeat centres on the triangular relationship between Stuart Sutcliffe, the band’s original bassist and an accomplished painter, his best friend John Lennon, and Astrid Kirchherr, the beatnik German photographer who Sutcliffe fell in love with. Struggling with his various loyalties, Sutcliffe eventually chose Astrid and art over the Beatles and music.

Sutcliffe handed over his guitar to Paul McCartney just before Beatlemania took off. Shortly after leaving the band, he died in Hamburg, at the age of just 22, of a brain haemorrhage. His portrait featured on the Beatles’ album cover for Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

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Related Content

Booking Tickets & Show Listings
Backbeat Listing Page
Backbeat Listing Page
Internal Links
Nick Blood: Why You Should Come & See ... Backbeat - 12th Dec 2011 interviews
Beatles Backbeat Shutters Early in West End, 18 Feb - 30th Nov 2011 news
Shayne Ward, Richard Fleeshman & Backbeat Launch WOS Awards - 14th Nov 2011 news
WOS Radio: Theatregoers Come Together at Backbeat Q&A - 19th Oct 2011 radio
Backbeat Cast & Creative Rock at post-show Q&A - 19th Oct 2011 blog
1st Night Photos: Backbeat Beatles Make West End Debut - 11th Oct 2011 photos
Review Round-up: Did Backbeat Rock the Critics? - 11th Oct 2011 roundup
Backbeat starstarstarstar - 11th Oct 2011 reviews
Blood, Knott & Gedmintas Cast in West End Backbeat - 2nd Sep 2011 news
Stage Play of Beatles Film Backbeat Hits West End in Oct - 1st Aug 2011 news
Cast: Stage Backbeat At Citz - 30th Dec 2009 news
Cast: Stage Backbeat, Jason O’Mara Serenades - 30th Dec 2009 news
Beatles Film Backbeat Receives Stage Premiere - 20th Oct 2009 news
Backbeat Brings Beatles to Stage??? - 3rd Dec 2003 gossip



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