Theatre review: Please Please Me

As the title gives away, Tom Wright's Please Please Me deals with the Beatles - or at least with the outsider credited with making the world sit up and pay attention to them, their gay, Jewish manager Brian Epstein. That's Brian Epstein. We first meet Brian (Calam Lynch) working in his family's department store, nominally in the closet but with his various encounters with rough trade (all played by William Robinson) often proving dangerous, his father (Arthur Wilson) is well aware of what's going on. Following the advice of one of his regular hook-ups, he visits the Cavern Club to catch the band that's got Liverpool's teenage girls screaming, and despite having no experience in the field decides he has to become their manager - and convinces them to give him a go.

It's long been thought that Brian was in love with John Lennon, and Please Please Me is firmly in the camp that says this was what encouraged him to take such a career risk. But it also goes on to question whether this went further, and if the two ever slept together.

Wright's play is structured as a pretty straightforward telling of the Beatles' early days from Brian's perspective, taking us through his rebranding of them from generic rockers to wholesome boys who wouldn't scare off their fans' parents, and the meteoric rise that follows. For him, though, that's the beginning of the end, as he starts spiralling into the drink and drug use that would end up killing him at 32.

The crux moment here is his and John's mysterious holiday to Spain, where the two have sex (Lennon publicly denied this happened, but according to Yoko Ono he privately confirmed it.) The chemistry between Lynch and Noah Ritter's John is part of what makes this last scene before the interval the play's most memorable one - director Amit Sharma ramps up the tension as John all-out seduces Brian, who's frozen by having his obsession confronted quite so directly.

The second act sees Brian's fall, possibly as a result of how this encounter with John panned out. The play remains consistently interesting and sexy - possibly too sexy, as Ian "complained" that Lynch is far too good-looking to play Epstein and everyone is too gym-toned to realistically be young men from the 1960s. But this second half did drift off a bit for me, especially towards the end as Wright doesn't seem quite confident in how he wants to approach Epstein's death.

Lynch's performance anchors the evening though, with great support from the cast, especially Eleanor Worthington-Cox in all the female roles. Composer David Shrubsole is left to provide the musical atmosphere of the time since Beatles songs are too expensive to licence; we do get a bit of Cilla Black's "You're My World," though fortunately this cuts out before we find out if Worthington-Cox can accurately emulate the sound of a goose going through a shredder.

If Please Please Me isn't entirely slick it is an interesting take on the story, and what may have happened behind closed doors. We do find out that the road Lennon grew up in was called Menlove Avenue, and I can't decide if a play about him having sex with a man not making a joke about this is admirable restraint or a criminally missed opportunity.

Please Please Me by Tom Wright is booking until the 29th of May at the Kiln Theatre.

Running time: 2 hours 15 minutes including interval.

Photo credit: Mark Senior.