The Beatles Anthology : Season 1

This is the scarcely credible beginning of the Great Adventure, going back, back, back into a great war in a grey time that seems to belong to other beings in other worlds. Britain under Hitler's bombs, boys not yet Beatles struggling for a place in the sun. Wonderful archive of yesterday's enemy seaports now united by primitive, derivative rock'n'roll - Hamburg and Liverpool, full of young men scuffling for position and rank, nobody with advantage except for real gifts and those the Beatles had

The earth is moving fast beneath their speeding boots. Millions of saloon bar prophets who couldn't tell them apart had to hand it to them': "They've got something! From Liverpool, I hear - of all places." From Liverpool uber alles! They leave their Cavern Club in this episode and within months they take the ascendancy in the British pop world, and start to live the life of Riley in London. They play the Palladium, the Royal Albert Hall, The Royal Variety Show, sing Moonlight Bay with Morecambe

This was still a time of wonderment on both sides of the equation. The world couldn't believe this magnificent four-headed creation could continue to be so delightfully entertaining and impudent and the creature couldn't believe the world could be so nice. Wherever they went now, first America, then Europe, the Far East and Australasia, and back to Liverpool for the special 'local' premiere of A Hard Day's Night, they brought Beatlemania with them. They couldn't help it; it was a form of real