The Man Who Gave The Beatles Away

The New Theatre, East Essex Street, Dublin until 26 October.

It's a case of two for the price of one in this mix of theatre and live music that tells the story of Allan Williams, the man who managed the Fab Four in the period before Beatlemania. The accounts of Stuart Sutcliffe, Pete Best, Brian Epstein, and the musical talents of Sir George Martin may be well documented in relation to the Beatles story, but it was from Williams' coffee bar in Liverpool back in 1958 that the sounds that were to change the course of popular music were first heard.

Writer and Director Ronan Wilmot offers a well-researched insight into the life of Allan Williams. Actors Pearse Butler and Darren McHugh play the older and younger Williams, as we are told of the trauma he felt following the death of his mother when he was baby, his father's subsequent re-marriage and the many odd jobs he had as a youngster.

Music was in Williams' blood from an early age and he was prepared to leave Liverpool and train professionally as a singer. However, his father, depicted as hard-working and sensitive man, did not want him to go. The resulting tug of war ended in the young Allan succumbing to his father's wishes and forsaking his dream. It is obvious that Wilmot's script depicts his central character as somebody, who not only craves love, but success. Pearse Butler as the older Allan accurately conveys this throughout the play in a moving and thought provoking performance

Allan Williams the successful businessman emerged in his mid-twenties with the opening of a coffee bar in Liverpool called 'The Jacaranda.' In partnership with his wife Beryl (Secret Haung) the new venture was a success from day one. Regular customers John Lennon and Paul McCartney began strumming their guitars and belting out the tunes down in the basement. Eventually they approached Williams and asked him to get them a gig, and so began the legendary story of the Beatles.

The younger Williams (Darren McHugh) sets about getting the 'lads' on as support to established performers like Gerry & The Pacemakers and Billy Furey. Arguments about payment, size of venues, role of agents, the means by which they travelled to Hamburg and the run down accommodation they had there offer an authentic backdrop of what it must have been like for an up and coming band trying to make the breakthrough.

The group's trip to Germany in 1960 organised through the assistance of promoter Bruno Koschmeider (Gary Lynch) was a defining moment for the band. They got to perform seven nights a week to bigger audiences, but more importantly it offered them a chance to stamp their own distinctive 'Beatles' sound on the music of Chuck Berry, Little Richard and Fats Domino. It would be another two years before Lennon and McCartney compositions would arrive on the world stage.

This segment of the play also shows the relationship that developed between Stuart Sutcliffe and German art student Astrid Kirch Herr (Martha Van der Bly). From the start, director Wilmot encases it with an air of doom so as to prepare us for the eventual outcome. Moments of tenderness are interspersed with cries of pain from Sutcliffe. These cries of discomfort eventually result in his death from a brain haemorrhage at a young age.

Still though, the mood is predominately upbeat. The five young musicians from Crumlin (Damien Butler, Daragh Butler, Kevin Butler, Neil O'Farrell, Anthony Fox) who play John, Paul, George, Stuart and the first Beatle drummer Tommy Moore had the audience clapping in their seats throughout. The scouse accents weren't half bad either. They also provided a lift when the story began to sag a little in the second half. At times you will wonder whether you were at a concert or a piece of live theatre. In fact you are at both.

Credit must be given to Ronan Wilmot for bringing the story to the stage. In the end he doesn't dwell too much on the eventual parting of the ways between Allan Williams and The Beatles. He has captured the innocence of the time through the eyes of one man who can say without quarrel that he knew the Fab Four when they had nothing. 'The Man Who Gave The Beatles Away' works well within the confines of The New Theatre. In saying that I don't think it would loose any of its charm if it played in a bigger venue.

James McMahon