From the Epstein Theatre to the Cavern in the Town.
Andrew Sherlock’s play charting a fictional account of an evening in August 1967 premiered in Liverpool in November 2012 in the theatre that had just been renamed in honour of Brian Epstein, the local legend who propelled the Beatles to stardom and then sank under the weight of his own success. Highly appropriate that this revival, starring its original cast of Andrew Lancel and Will Finlason, makes its London premiere at a venue formerly named the Cavern in the Town - the Leicester Square Theatre.
The play is set in Epstein’s fashionable Belgravia flat, stylishly represented by Amanda Stoodley and Katie Scott’s minimlist set, all white walls and shagpile and sparingly dressed with authentic 1960s furnishings.
Epstein returns home with a young man visiting from Liverpool who he’s picked up in a bar. This Boy (who has no other name) has other intentions to those clearly on Brian’s mind. He has ambitions as a journalist and wants to find the real story of Brian Epstein. He’s tired of everything he hears being about the Fab Four and he wants to understand what makes their mentor tick. As the play progresses we get a feel for the predicament that Epstein finds himself in, as he struggles to reach the end of a sentence without making reference to “The Boys”. It’s clear that here is a man who is a genius promoter but whose own light is outshone at every turn by the acts that he has promoted and there is a profound sadness as his story unfolds.
Once he lets the barriers down Brian gives us glimpses into a troubled past. A bullied schoolboy who’s a slave to family expectations and who has to lead a double existence, as openness about his homosexuality would tarnish the success of the empire he has built. By turns he is both loved and derided by his protégés and he relies on alcohol and sleeping pills to get him through.
Andrew Lancel has studied Epstein in fine detail and has every vocal and physical nuance at his fingertips, but this is no mere impersonation. There is a brittle fragility in this portrayal and we find ourselves both being drawn towards and recoiling from the character.
We are helped along in this by the mixed feelings that Will Finlason’s This Boy has towards the man he’s made it his business to get to know. There are times when he is ready to walk away and others when he simply has to offer both emotional and physical support. In an opening prologue, he tells us that he is nobody in particular - just this boy, that boy, the fool on the hill - and he does act as a sounding board for the exploration of Epstein’s character.
Finlason however draws much more out of what could in other hands be an unrewarding role. This Boy was his professional debut role in 2012 and then he demonstrated tremendous stage presence. Whilst he’s done a good deal more stage work in between (including a lengthy nationwide tour in Dreamboats and Petticoats) he has lost none of his charm, and he not only provides a foil to Lancel’s Epstein but fleshes out the mysterious character beautifully, as well as offering brief cameos as others from Epstein’s past as we visit them in occasional flashback sequences.
The prologue and closing epilogue (both delivered by This Boy) are integral parts of the illusory nature of the tale – framing it as a fictionalised account – as are the frequent references to songs from the Beatles and their contemporaries, which reinforce the tide of idolatry for his stars that constantly overwhelms Brian’s own identity and leads to his final, tragic demise.
Jen Hayes’s direction is detailed but uncluttered and she has allowed her two players to inject great humanity into their roles. The staging is simply done and some projection sequences, including both archive and specially filmed material, help to anchor the context of the piece.
While the market is flooded with plays and musicals about four boys from Liverpool who rocked the world, Andrew Sherlock has set out to paint a portrait of the complex and troubled individual who made not only their careers but those of numerous others before his tragic and untimely accidental death. When you’re in town to see this play, as I highly recommend you do, pop along to Argyll Street. There you’ll see the blue plaque recently erected on the former London office of NEMS enterprises, from which so many artists were managed by the legend who was Brian Epstein.
Epstein: The Man Who Made The Beatles plays at the Leicester Square Theatre until 6th September and tickets are available from the theatre box office at www.leicestersquaretheatre.com
Photograph, copyright David Munn
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