A stage version of "Backbeat," the 1994 film about the early days of the Beatles, will hit the stage as a musical in London starting Oct. 10.
The stage production, to run at the Duke of York Theatre in the West End, received its world premiere at Glasgow’s Citizen’s Theatre in 2010. The new version is co-written by Iain Softley, director of the film, and Stephen Jeffreys and produced by Karl Sydow. David Leveaux will directs the West End production and Paul Stacey will be the musical director.
The play dramatizes the history of the early Beatles as John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Pete Best and Stuart Sutcliffe performed nightly in Hamburg, Germany. Much of the drama is devoted to the life of Stuart Sutcliffe, who played bass with the Beatles before leaving the group to devote his career to art.
The Beatles setlist in those days featured many songs done by other artists. Songs in the play, which will be performed live on stage, include "Twist & Shout", "Rock & Roll Music", "Long Tall Sally", "Please Mr Postman" and "Money (That's What I Want)."
The 1994 film starred Stephen Dorff as Stuart Sutcliffe, Ian Hart as John Lennon and Sheryl Lee as Astrid Kirchherr.
Several actors from the film played the same roles in other Beatles films. Hart played Lennon again in "The Hours and Times," a dramatization of a vacation trip to Spain taken by the Beatle and manager Brian Epstein. Bakewell, who played Paul McCartney, played the same role in the TV movie "The Linda McCartney Story."
For Scott Williams, however, art, in a relative way, imitated life. Williams, who played Pete Best, played him again in the TV movie "In His Life: The John Lennon Story." According to IMDB.com, it was after starring in "Backbeat" that Williams discovered he was a distant relative of Alun Owen, the screenwriter for the Beatles' first movie "A Hard Day's Night."
According to a spokesman for the production, previews of the musical begin in September. Tickets are now available at www.atgtickets.com/backbeat. There are no announced plans as yet to bring the play to the United States.
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