The Beatles in Hamburg? It's the stuff of pop legend. It's also the theme of David Harrower's modest but enjoyable 90-minute play, on at the Theatre Upstairs. It deals with the cultural collision between the political innocence of the Merseyside group and the historical experience of their German employers.
Although Harrower never names the band, the play taps into Beatles myth. It is Hamburg in 1960 and we see three of the five-strong group uneasily cohabiting in a dingy basement. Paul is the most arrogant, proclaiming, "We've got nothing to learn from anyone. We are who we are." George, a jobbing electrician, is the naive one who can't quite believe his luck. And Pete is the studious drummer locked into his own private world. But the crisis comes when they learn that the club's owner is an ex-Nazi. Paul's reaction is to go on stage, shout "Sieg Heil" and storm around in jackboots. After playing to rapidly dwindling audiences, the group becomes a Hamburg hit.
Harrower reports the incident without showing it, which muffles its dramatic impact: we're never sure how much it was a two-fingered showbiz prank or the moment the Beatles discovered a complicity with young audiences who wanted to dissociate themselves from history. John Lennon's absence from the play also makes Paul seem, unexpectedly, the spirit of anarchic defiance. And Harrower's decorous group portrait is at odds with the fact that the ur-Beatles spent much of their Hamburg sojourn in a state of smashed frenzy.
But although the play is an odd mix of bio-drama and speculative fiction, it gets across one crucial point: the yawning gap between the playful naivete of touring British pop groups and the painful experience of their European hosts. For the Liverpool lads, Hitler is simply the bogeyman they were brought up to fear. But for Marian, the club's manager and the most sympathetic character, a love of pre-war American swing led to prolonged incarceration. We're also reminded that, for the Beatles and similar groups, Hamburg was a madcap trip: for Elke, the waitress for whom Paul and George compete, it is a place from which urgently to escape.
Without banging across a message, Harrower certainly makes you question the Beatles' youthful charm. And he is well served by James Kerr's production and Rae Smith's design, which highlight the penitential squalor of the group's quarters, and by strong performances from Sarah Woodward as the solemnly businesslike Marian, William Ash as the pugnacious Paul, Michael Legge as the private Pete and Ralf Little as the gawky George. But the Beatles sans Lennon inevitably suggests Hamlet without the prince.
Until May 12. Box office: 020-7565 5000. A version of this review appeared in later editions of yesterday's paper.
