Review Roundup: BACKBEAT at Duke of York's Theatre

London's new rock & roll show BACKBEAT, opened at the Duke of York's Theatre on 10 October. Co-written by Iain Softley and Stephen Jeffreys and based on the 1994 film by Iain Softley, who directed the Glasgow production - Backbeat is the story of how The Beatles ‘became' The Beatles - when John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Pete Best and Stuart Sutcliffe embarked on their journey from the famous docks of Liverpool to search for success in the seedy red light district of Hamburg, Germany. Backbeat is produced by Karl Sydow and directed by David Leveaux.

Tickets are on sale now from www.atgtickets.com/backbeat / 0844 871 7623.

Charles Spencer, The Telegraph: It therefore pains me to report that this show largely left me bored and depressed. David Leveaux's production is irritatingly arty and largely fails to capture the rackety atmosphere of the sleazy Hamburg clubs where the Beatles honed their skills with a ferocious workload and a dodgy proprietor constantly shouting at them to "Mach Schau!" [Make show!]. It doesn't help that the actors playing the young Beatles look almost nothing like the originals. If you half close your eyes and the lights hit him at the right angle, Daniel Healy might just pass for McCartney but otherwise the actors strike me as marginally less convincing than the notoriously inept waxworks of the young Beatles at Madame Tussaud's.

Mark Shenton, The Stage: The central duo of Lennon and Sutcliffe are played with a respectively edgy and cool appeal by Andrew Knott and Nick Blood, with Ruta Gedmintas as the alluring image maker, in every sense, who comes between them. David Leveaux's galvanising production keeps the narrative as well as the songs in constant motion that is, in the end, full of emotion, too.

Michael Coveney, Whatsonstage: This is isn't just another jukebox musical, nor is it another brain-dead tribute show. It's a beautifully wrought and darkly cynical evocation of an era, and a particular place, as the Beatles found their inimitable voice through the grit and virility of the pounding music they loved still to play even as their own more lyrical, musically complex compositions poured forth over the next decade. For once, you really do feel like dancing in the aisles at the end.

Quentin Letts, Daily Mail: Director David Leveaux gives the thing plenty of flourish. During a love scene between Sutcliffe and Astrid, panels shuttle to and fro mid-stage and black-and-white images of the couple are flashed up large. The show re-creates the day when the boys were photographed in Hamburg. Eventually we have the real photos beamed on to the back wall. The music is strong, not least in volume.

Kieron Tyler, Arts Desk: Although Sutcliffe's musical legacy is tiny, the music doesn't matter. Barely audible on three murky tracks compiled for the first Beatles' Anthology, he wasn't a great musician and was gone from the band by 1960's end. But he looked incredible, was a credible abstract artist, named the band and he and his Hamburg friends shaped the band's image. He was the first Beatle to comb his hair forwards. The others followed. But he died in 1962, before the band issued "Love Me Do".

 

 

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