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Evening Standard
Evening Standard
Entertainment
Nick Curtis

Please Please Me review: Clumsy look at Brian Epstein's sexual obsession with John Lennon

Brian Epstein John Lennon Beatles Tom Wright Calam Lynch Kiln Cilla Black Cynthia Mark Senior The Beatles
Calam Lynch (Brian). - (Mark Senior)

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.

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