The Beatles - From Me To You [The Royal Variety Performance, Prince of Wales Theatre, London]

Live, Television: 04/11/1963 This was the night of The Beatles’ famous appearance at the Royal Command Performance at the Prince of Wales Theatre in London, in the presence of the Queen Mother and Princess Margaret. By this point Beatlemania was an established phenomenon, with the group drawing huge and frenzied audiences across the country and beyond. Although they were seventh on the 19-act bill on this night, they were by far the most anticipated performers to appear. The Beatles began playing their opening song, From Me To You, before the curtains had opened. After the final chord John Lennon and Paul McCartney moved their microphone stands nearer the edge of the stage to get closer to the audience. The Beatles’ appearance was a triumph. However, they declined all subsequent invitations to reappear on the show, despite repeated attempts to lure them back. «We managed to refuse all sorts of things that people don’t know about. We did the Royal Variety Show, and we were asked discreetly to do it every year after that, but we always said, ’Stuff it.’ So every year there was a story in the newspapers: ’Why no Beatles for the Queen?’ which was pretty funny, because they didn’t know we’d refused. That show’s a bad gig, anyway. Everybody’s very nervous and uptight and nobody performs well. The time we did do it, I cracked a joke on stage. I was fantastically nervous, but I wanted to say something to rebel a bit, and that was the best i could do.» [John Lennon, 1970 Anthology] And also my other page: