Let It Be

LET IT BE
ORCHARD THEATRE, DARTFORD 27th JUNE 2016

After a long weekend of doom and gloom everywhere THE ORCHARD THEATRE, DARTFORD offered the perfect escape, transporting the SRO audience back 50+ years to a time when the Common Market didn’t want us, and we didn’t care, as our music ruled the airwaves and we were all happy.

Celebrating the music and spirit of THE BEATLES, ‘LET IT BE’ delivers exactly what the poster says, with music and performance 100% accurate, they’ve obviously studied the videos greatest detail, until their last gig in 1966, then creative licence takes over and it’s hard to believe that this isn’t how they would have performed live.

From the opening beat of ‘I Saw Her Standing There’, to the endless chorus of ‘Hey Jude’ the song selection is faultless, all of the essential 45’s plus varied and interesting album tracks. The Beatles journey is told via a number of key stages, The Cavern, Royal Variety, America, Shea Stadium and, of course, ‘Sgt Pepper’.

This segment of the show closes the first act with the title track, ‘A Little Help From My Friends’, ‘When I’m 64’, plus ‘Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds’ and ‘A Day In The Life’ both with psychedelic lighting effects as stunning and mind blowing as Lennon & McCartney would have envisaged.

Back to the hits again after the break before an ‘Unplugged’ session featuring stripped bare versions of ‘Blackbird’, ‘Here Comes The Sun’, ‘In My Life’ and ‘Yellow Submarine’, before blowing the roof off with ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’ you can only imagine they would have relished this situation.

‘Revolution’ paved the way for the big finale of ‘Let It Be’, ‘Get Back’ with ‘Hey Jude’ bringing the evening to a close, an absolutely authentic performance throughout, every minor detail from John’s capers, Ringo’s dry humour and Paul’s barefoot ‘Abbey Road’ is there, a true acknowledgment of an unrivalled talent.

If you there in the sixties, your personal memories would have come flooding back, if you were too young and wondered exactly what the fuss was about, you now know, either way the audience were still singing all the way back to the car park. Theatre doesn’t get better than this!

Jim Stewart

• Type: user
• Performance Date: 27/06/2016
• Star rating: 12345