A new play at London's Kiln Theatre, Please Please Me, shines a light on Brian Epstein, the manager often referred to as the 'fifth Beatle.' Written by Tom Wright, the production offers a shrewd and lightly salacious expose of the infatuated manager who scrubbed up the band he loved and sold them to the world.
The story begins when the shy, smart-suited Epstein first ventures into Liverpool's Cavern Club. He is instantly overcome by what he finds: 'four towering man boys poured into leather,' as portrayed by Calam Lynch, who brings an intense, repressed sexuality to the awkward Epstein. Soon, Epstein is lured away from his family's department store, Nems, run by his father (Arthur Wilson), a man deeply ashamed of his gay son despite appreciating his knack for understanding youth tastes.
Epstein loves the Beatles' sound but knows their look will market them to audiences. He sands off their rough edges, turning them into something softer and more family-friendly. His tender attentions are trained most closely on John Lennon, brought to sarcastic, edgy life by Noah Ritter's standout performance.
The early scenes feel stiff and artificial, padded with exposition from the many books that have fetishised every detail of the Beatles' early lives. We hear that Lennon is posher than he pretends, messed up by his absent mother, and controlled by staunch aunt Mimi (Eleanor Worthington-Cox). But that stiltedness melts away in a long, prickly, intimate scene in a Spanish hotel room between Epstein and Lennon. Wright is insightful on how Epstein's repression and shame make him vulnerable to manipulation, as well as on the violence that comes when ostensibly straight men fight down feelings a repressive society won't let them admit to.
The band that Please Please Me nominally centres on seem weirdly absent from Wright's story. Without rights to the Beatles' music, their genius can only be lightly suggested in David Shrubsole's cleverly crafted instrumentals. Aside from Lennon, the other three Beatles remain offstage, only occasionally referenced by the hard-working, multi-roling cast. Instead, we get inconclusive glimpses into the life of another Epstein protegee, Cilla Black (Eleanor Worthington-Cox), the relentlessly bubbly singing star he emotionally leans on and professionally neglects, too stuck on John.
Kiln artistic director Amit Sharma's staging is fluent and funny, deftly showing the seismic social changes rippling through Lennon and Epstein's relationship. The passage of time unbuttons them, embitters them, curdles their optimism into a drug-addled self-delusion. Epstein can change the way the band dress, but he cannot change who they are. He can only destroy himself, in a narrative that restores the danger to the endlessly-told story of the Beatles' unstoppable rise.
'Please Please Me' is on at the Kiln Theatre until 29 May.
