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It’s a truth universally acknowledged among Beatles fans that Brian Epstein’s quixotic urge to manage the band was driven by his sexual obsession with John Lennon. Whether or not that passion was ever requited is one of the things laboriously discussed in Tom Wright’s clumsy, exposition-driven play about the 60s Svengali, who died of an overdose aged 32 in 1967.
Kiln boss Amit Sharma’s bare-bones production has the feel of a superior student effort, and is hamstrung by the absence of Beatles songs, presumably due to cost or rights issues. A sparky performance by Eleanor Worthington-Cox as Cilla Black – the Cavern Club’s “cloakroom superstar”, possessed of weapons-grade self-belief - and an impressive stage debut by Noah Ritter as the cynical, manipulative John lift things somewhat.
In the lead role, Calam Lynch is charismatic but over the top, turning the circumspect manager into a buff, queeny and self-destructive loose cannon, paying greedily for rough sex and stimulants. Meanwhile, the determined pronunciation of his surname as “Ep-STEEN” yanks you repeatedly out of the action and into a whole new set of unhelpful associations. As a Beatles fan of many decades I’d always heard it pronounced “Ep-STYNE”, which is perhaps wrong: but I’m sure I won’t be alone in finding this jarring.
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The story of how this Jewish, Liverpudlian record-shop manager discovered and shaped the band that changed the world, and how they arguably abandoned him, is sketchily but over-literally reiterated by Wright. In the first scene, Brian explains to his fusty father that this new-fangled rock ‘n’ roll, epitomised by Elvis Presley, is “what’s happening, dad”. An angsty Teddy Boy arrives claiming Brian seduced him and demanding blackmail money. Right, yes, homosexuality is illegal. Got it.
Then at a lunchtime concert at the Cavern in 1961 he’s captivated by the “wet testosterone” of four bequiffed and leather-jacketed rockers, particularly the “slight, sexy sneer” of Lennon. (This moment is realised with Ritter backlit, alone at the rear of the stage: it’s hard to capture incipient Beatlemania, not to mention the whole milieu of the ‘60s, with just five actors and a few bits of furniture.)
Brian tells John’s snippy aunt Mimi he’ll repackage the boys’ raw energy by giving them suits and haircuts. When John gets his girlfriend Cynthia pregnant (Worthington-Cox plays all the female characters), Brian manages the fallout. Key moments are briskly ticked off: Decca Records’ rejection of the band; John and Brian’s much-speculated-on trip to Barcelona three weeks after Cynthia gave birth in 1963; the US backlash after John claimed the Beatles were “more popular than Jesus” in 1966.
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This is the sort of play where people say things like: “It’s the 60s, everybody’s experimenting with something!” Or where one character can mention a new spiritual influence on the band, prompting the response: “Ah yes, the Maharishi!” References to being “on yer Joe” or having “a cob on” are lobbed in for Scouse verisimilitude. Brian slips into the coded gay slang polari at one point, and becomes progressively more waspishly camp, branding one associate “Judy Iscariot”.
The buttoned-up suits of Brian and his colleagues Peter (Brown) and Geoffrey (Ellis) give way to floral shirts as homosexuality is partially decriminalised in the UK and Brian starts to drown in drugs and rent boys. Brian and John trippily recap their relationship in John’s psychedelic Rolls Royce (represented by a Spirit of Ecstasy statuette on a coffee table). Only Cilla remains unchanged: formidable and implacable in her thigh-skimming cocktail frocks, belting out a few bars of “You’re My World” in what turns out to be the evening’s musical high point.
Maybe, just maybe there’s a decent play to be made about Brian Epstein, to add to the seemingly endless torrent of reappraisals, reissues and general picking-over of Beatles minutiae. This definitely isn’t it.
To 29 May, kilntheatre.com.
