‘Let It Be’ at Palace Theatre, Manchester

If you treat the “Let It Be” show as a tribute act it’s a jolly toe tapping- sing along evening, as its essentially a concert with an above average covers band offering a non-stop parade of hits in a rather matter of fact order from the group’s early songs to tracks from their last Abbey Road album.

The show opens with a scene from the Cavern in Liverpool and your expectations are very high indeed as the scenery is great but I didn’t really feel the band got the audience going at all and it was very difficult to create the atmosphere they were trying to generate.

There is no attempt to arrange the Beatles hits into a fictional story, such as in Mamma Mia!, and it isn’t really a recreation of their historic rise in the mid sixties to seventies.

Nearly everyone got up to “Twist and Shout” but it was the great songs of the Beatles that kept the audience on their feet and not the energy of the band.

If you love the Beatles songs you were definitely in the right place but John Lennon’s character was trying too hard to mimic a Liverpudlian accent and the other actors James Fox – Paul, etc weren’t trying hard enough.

The costume changes and clothing which the Beatles were almost as famous for over the years of their evolution as a band were intermingled around film footage and some rather thought evoking hippy graphics from their Sgt Pepper era.

The encore was the best bit with “Let It Be” followed by “Hey Jude” and we all left with a smile on our faces. I still would have rather listened to The Beatles Greatest Hits in the car, singing at the top of my voice.

The actors for this performance were John Brosnan, James Fox, Michael Gagliano, Ben Cullingworth and Steve Greene

Let it be at the Palace Theatre is running till sat 8th march.

Tickets

Tickets: £10 – £45
0844 871 3019*
www.atgtickets.com/manchester

Location

97 Oxford St, Manchester, Lancashire M1 6FT