Around the Beatles: a one-off TV variety show from 1964:
In 1964, The Beatles put together a one-off variety show, with musical numbers specially pre-recorded for the show, presented in the style of theater-in-the-round.
Around the Beatles was aired in the UK and later that same year in the US, but never commercially released. The show includes The Beatles performing a scene from
A Midsummer's Night Dream, with Paul McCartney as Pyramus, John Lennon as his lover Thisbe, George Harrison as Moonshine, Starr as Lion, and
Trevor Peacock (the only actual actor in the lot) in the role of Quince. A
color clip of that was
posted previously, but you can watch the entire (almost) hour-long show with The Beatles' segments accompanied by seven other musical acts,
on Dailymotion or
YouTube, though it's in black and white.
The full show features performances from other hit pop artists of the time, including
Long John Baldry, one of the first British vocalists to perform folk and blues, the
brilliant mimic of other artists, P.J. Proby, the
girl group The Vernons Girls, who were formed by the Vernons
Football Pools, singer
Cillia Black,
Sounds Incorporated, the Kentish 'Wall Of Sound', and
the young Jamacian singer, Millie (Small).
More fun facts:
This was one of
Trevor Peacock's earliest performances in an adaptation of Shakespeare. He went on to perform in various
BBC TV adaptations of Shakespeare plays throughout the 1980s.
Though
The Beatles covered a ton of songs over the years, this rendition of
Shout,
originally by The Isley Brothers, is longer than
the version included on Anthology I.
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