John Lennon’s lyrics and the cover of Sgt Pepper both pay homage to his tale, and now it is Glasgow’s turn, when the stage adaptation of celebrated 1994 film Backbeat receives its world premiere at the Citizens Theatre next February.
Ian Softley, who wrote and directed the movie, will once more be at the helm. Astrid Kirchherr, the German photographer whose love story with Sutcliffe provides Backbeat’s backbone, has also been involved in developing the production.
A stage version of the film, which depicts the young band in early 1960s Hamburg, has long been in the offing. “A play is something that I’ve always intended to do ever since I made it,” says Softley. “I always thought it could have another life on stage. In a theatre you get a direct experience of the energy and excitement of the music. I was convinced of that, right from the first rehearsals of the film which we did in the Kaiserkeller club.”
Scotland was chosen for the world premiere not only because Sutcliffe was born in Edinburgh but also because Softley wanted to distance the play from the “Beatles nostalgia” that a Liverpool premiere would have entailed. “It had to appear as a piece of new theatre in its own right,” he says.
But the main draw was the Citizens Theatre. “It’s the Citz,” he says. “It’s got a great reputation for new writing and new plays. And that is how we see this. There are many things that can be explored, with art and photography, that couldn’t be done on screen. And we wanted to start somewhere that had a great history for artistic and creative interpretation.”
Backbeat tells the story of the love triangle between Sutcliffe, Kirchherr and Lennon. From 1960 to 1962 the embryonic Beatles made several trips to Hamburg to play raucous all-night sets in clubs. Sutcliffe was the band’s original bassist and Lennon’s best friend. When he fell in love with Kirchherr he was torn between staying with The Beatles and Lennon or remaining in Germany with Kirchherr. Sutcliffe chose the latter, but tragically died of a brain haemorrhage in 1962, aged 21.
Softley has refined the script, teamed up with London West End producer Karl Sydow, and is currently in the final stages of auditioning a new cast. Backbeat, he stresses, “is not a musical. It is a play with songs.” At least 22 R&B and rock’n’roll standards that the Beatles played in their Hamburg days, including Dizzy Miss Lizzie, Good Golly Miss Molly, and Please Mr Postman, will be belted out by a live band onstage.
“From the early recordings from Hamburg, they had an energy almost like a punk band,” says Softley. “There was a rawness and an energy that we will convey in the stage production.”
Of the surviving Beatles, however, Paul McCartney was unimpressed. He complained that showing Lennon singing Long Tall Sally, a song that McCartney always sang live, “took the rock’n’rollness off me”. But Softley says it would be “great” if he came to Glasgow for the premiere.
After its run in Glasgow the ambition is to take it to London’s west end.
Jeremy Raison and Guy Hollands, the artistic directors of the Citz, say they are “delighted” that Backbeat will be opening on their stage.
“It is fitting that a play about such an iconic band will open in one of the most iconic theatres in the UK,” says Raison. “We hope this will be just the start of the international success of Backbeat.”
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