“The Beatles and Shakespeare are our biggest cultural exports”,Stuart Maconie proclaimed, in conversation with Paulette Edwards, a presenter on BBC Radio Sheffield. He might have a point: The Beatles changed music forever, and as Maconie describes, many other parts of life from clothing to the presentation of masculinity. His talk was full of interesting information, although I did not feel I gained anything more from it than I would have done from simply reading the book it was based on: With a Little Help From Their Friends.
This book, and talk, centres on the figures surrounding The Beatles: “people around them just fell in love”. Edwards expertly steered the conversation, though you sometimes got the impression Maconie would prefer to be allowed to take control, as he constantly interrupted her. Professing that he simply wanted to “add his place on the shelf” of Beatles literature, Maconie explained that he started to notice all the people surrounding The Beatles who were just as interesting as the band themselves. The book contains the stories of 100 people who changed the lives of The Beatles, a few of which were touched upon in his talk.
Edwards pointed out that many of the people who helped The Beatles were women, specifically middle-class women. The most interesting of these I found was Jane Asher, Paul’s early girlfriend. She was highly educated, moreso than Paul, and introduced him to poetry, literature and the avant-garde. “People always think John’s the artistic one”, Maconie explained, “but really it’s Paul”. Much of the talk centred on Paul – out of the four, John hardly got a look in. Towards the end of the talk, Maconie admitted that he was “team Paul”: quite an obvious admission. It did seem biased, but this is nothing new: practically every Beatles fan has their own opinion, it seems. Indeed, during the Q&A, a particularly provocative man announced that George and Ringo were “merely hangers on”, at which the rest of the audience proceeded to boo, loudly. Despite Maconie’s bias, he was an engaging and interesting speaker, who obviously had a lot of knowledge that he was pleased to be able to share. Edwards commented that with such love for The Beatles, researching the book must have felt “like you were having a long pudding”. Her contributions were frequently interesting and pleasant, and she gave the impression that she had genuinely thought about the book and what to talk about – she was brought to tears multiple times, as were members of the audience: for fans of The Beatles, this talk must have been truly special.
Maconie’s passion was evident, spurring the audience to share their own love and care for The Beatles. “One genius isn’t enough”, he said near the end of the talk: it takes a village to create something as special as The Beatles. While this talk may have had its flaws, it had a huge amount of heart and I was evidently in the company of some very knowledgeable and heartfelt people.
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆
