For the National Portrait Gallery’s first major exhibition since reopening, it’s hard to imagine a more bang-on-target choice than this. Here we have 250 unseen photographs from Paul McCartney’s personal archive, chronicling the height of Beatlemania – and the vast majority taken by the ex-Beatle himself. Not only is it a guaranteed draw, at a time when public galleries need funds like never before, but it’s hard – the royals aside – to find a more unifying embodiment of British identity than The Beatles. They were forward-looking and turned the class system on its head (or so we’re endlessly told), but they were also in love with the British past – with music hall and Alice in Wonderland. Wherever you stand in the so-called culture wars, you’ll find something to hang on to in The Beatles.
Captured here is the great Beatlemania moment of 1963-64, with its multitudes of screaming teenagers, when the entire world seemed to stop what it was doing to watch the four Liverpool lads’ televised progress through the world’s airports and stadia. It’s a vital cultural episode that never loses its fascination.
That said, this is hardly uncharted territory. Many great snappers had access to the Fab Four’s limos, hotel rooms and backstage areas. And there’s A Hard Day’s Night, Richard Lester’s still amazing film, which turned the whole thing into instant modern mythology even as it was happening. If, like very many, you’ve lapped up every TV documentary, book and magazine article on this subject and have entire sequences from A Hard Day’s Night burned into your consciousness – and are still, of course, planning to see the show – you may wonder what new insights can possibly be revealed.
