Let It Be aims to be ‘The Beatles reunion you never got to see’. The creative team behind this show has gone to extraordinary lengths to achieve a kind of historical accuracy that will appeal to anyone who fondly remembers the days when the Fab Four were the dominant force in popular music. There are moments in Let It Be that are eerily like being taken back in time.

A brief reminder of the facts: disenchanted with all the screaming and the hurly-burly of being ferried from one venue to the next, The Beatles stopped touring in 1966.  They confined themselves to being solely a studio band, albeit it an exceptionally creative one, so their millions of fans never saw them performing songs from Sergeant Pepper, The White Album or Abbey Road on stage.  In 1969 there was an impromptu 40-minute roof-top performance at the their Saville Row offices, but the end was in sight, and the final break-up came in 1970.

Let It Be is partly a recreation of The Beatles as they were before 1966, and partly an imagining of what they might have been like on stage if they had ever held a reunion concert in 1980. Four talented musicians sustain the pretence of being John, Paul, George and Ringo right throughout the show, but as they perform nearly forty songs there is no space left for extended narrative. For example, we do not get to see anything of Brian Epstein, George Martin, or Yoko Ono. This is a concert, rather than a piece of music-theatre. However, there are two screens suspended above the stage that frequently show archive footage that offers a little cultural and historical context, and they serve as an entertaining distraction when the curtain falls during costume changes. Some creaky old TV adverts are particularly amusing. 

The first half of the show is structured in chronological fashion, taking the band from She Loves You through to Sergeant Pepper. The impersonations at their best are uncannily accurate, and initially there is much enjoyment to be had in hearing and seeing old favourites like I Wanna Hold Your Hand performed as if by The Beatles themselves.  Emanuele Angeleti captures Paul McCartney’s mannerisms from his ‘lovable mop-top’ days, and he even plays his bass with correct left-handedness. Paul Mannion has John Lennon’s nasal twang off to a tee, heard to great effect in Strawberry Fields Forever.  John Brosnan is a very talented guitarist, so all of George Harrison’s riffs are delivered with apparently effortless plomb. As Ringo, Ben Culllingworth gets only one song in the first half, but his rendition of With A Little Help From My Friends is perhaps the most strikingly accurate reproduction of all, and his superb playing serves as a reminder that the young Richard Starkey was no slouch behind the drum kit. Tucked away at the side on keyboards, Musical Director Michael Branwell supplies the string quartet in Yesterday, and the trumpet solo in Penny Lane, sounds that made The Beatles so much more than just a guitars and drums band.

Last night’s audience was clapping along as early as the second number, and by the third many were on their feet.  But before very long a wearying predictability creeps in, as yet another song is performed almost exactly like the original. An hour is a long time to be spent gazing at a replica, no matter how faithful it might be to the original.  The costume changes reveal the band growing moustaches and longer hair, and eventually we see them decked out in the extravagant satin regalia from the Sergeant Pepper album cover. The effect is a little like watching animated waxworks, where everything is accurate, but lacking life. I found myself wanting the performers to break out of the constraints imposed upon them by the need to be exactly like The Beatles.

Fortunately, the second half is in less of a straitjacket.  Because it depicts a concert that never actually occurred, there is less of a stultifying need to be quite so ‘authentic’. Would John Lennon have happily accompanied Paul McCartney playing Band On The Run?  Possibly not, given their decidedly strained relationship at that time, but it’s fun to imagine them being fully reconciled and enjoying a reunion.  We hear some of the best songs from the solo careers that evolved post-1970, and then there’s an injection of real, no-holds-barred energy with a rock n’ roll medley that includes old favourites like Long Tall Sally and Roll Over Beethoven. Ironically, given that this show is largely a homage to the works of Lennon and McCartney, the undoubted highlight of the whole evening is a quite brilliant rendition of Harrison’s While My Guitar Gently Weeps. John Brosnan, as George, apologises for not being Eric Clapton, who played the guitar solo on the original recording, but then he goes on to give a blistering performance. That, plus a few encores, brings the show to a very satisfactory conclusion.

Let It Be is essentially a tribute band show, but one with exceptionally high production values. There is meticulous attention to detail, and aficionados will enjoy spotting the many little touches of authenticity.  Inevitably, in striving so hard to pretend to be a Beatles concert, there is something a little fraudulent about it.  As with all clever forgeries the level of skill is hugely impressive, but one is always aware that its not the real article.

Perhaps one day someone will create a music-drama about The Beatles that celebrates their music and explores their life and times in some depth.  In the meantime, Let It Be delivers an evening of unashamed, singalong nostalgia.  The music is great, and for many that will more than suffice.  ★★★★☆     Mike Whitton   28^th May 2019