Around The Beatles
| Around the Beatles | |
|---|---|
| Genre | TV Special |
| Directed by | Rita Gillespie |
| Starring |
The Beatles with Long John Baldry P.J. Proby The Vernons Girls Cilla Black Sounds Incorporated Millie |
| Production | |
| Producer(s) | Jack Good |
| Release | |
| Original network | ITV |
| Original release | 6 May 1964 |
Around the Beatles was a 1964 television special featuring the Beatles, produced by Jack Good for ITV/Rediffusion London. It was taped in Wembley Park Studios and are now known as Fountain Studios in London on 19 April 1964, and broadcast internationally, with its initial airing on 6 May 1964, and in the US on the ABC network on 15 November. The show featured other performers as well, with the Beatles providing backing vocals for some of them.
The show opens on an image of the Globe Theatre, with Ringo Starr unfurling a flag with the legend "Around the Beatles". The studio setting is arranged as a theatre in the round, (hence the show's name) echoing the seating arrangement of the Globe. The opening act is a humorous rendition of the "play within a play", Pyramus and Thisbe (Act V, Scene I) from William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, with Paul McCartney as Pyramus, John Lennon as his lover Thisbe, George Harrison as Moonshine, and Starr as Lion, and also features Trevor Peacock in the role of Quince.
The special was released as a bootleg video by Media Home Entertainment. A video segment from the special appears in The Beatles Anthology documentary film. Songs from the special appear on the Anthology 1 compilation. The Beatles' musical set features the only recorded performance of "Shout" by the group. The footage of them singing "Can't Buy Me Love" is now included on the video disk of the 2015 reissue of the compilation 1.
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