Blog: Evolver: 62

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On Friday night I headed into London Town to The Bloomsbury Theatre, where I had tickets to see Beatles Scholar Mark Lewisohn do a talk called "Evolver:62". The idea was that he was presented 62 different ITEMS which told the story of The Beatles in 1962, which to some people may not SEEM the ideal way to spend a Friday evening but to me VERY MUCH WAS.

I was planning to meet Mr S Wilkinson for a PINT in the bar beforehand, but when I arrived it was closed so instead we went to a PUB, getting absolutely BLATTERED with rain on the way there. Inside they had the telly on showing The News, and on it I saw Mr Matt Tiller speaking about the Jack Leslie campaign what he has been one of the organisers of. It was VERY exciting and I fear I ALARMED some of the pub by shouting "IT'S MATT!" when he came on.

We returned to the Theatre to find that the bar a) open b) VERY busy. Happily I had been in this situation before, and knew that there was an UPSTAIRS bar which is usually, and was on this occasion, much less busy. This use of KNOWLEDGE felt GOOD!

The show began soon after and, as expected, it was GRATE. The wonderful thing about Mr Lewisohn is that he actually does PROPER RESEARCH, properly digging into things to find out what ACTUALLY happened via EVIDENCE rather than, as most other such writers do, just copying what other people have said in the past. This is particularly INVIGORATING with Beatles stuff as SO much of the previous literature is based on newspaper reports from the sixties which were ALWAYS WRONG about pretty much EVERYTHING. Huge tracts of the show was him saying "People have always said (FACT) for yeard, but actually (OPPOSITE THING) is true, and LOOK! here are multuple documents proving it!"

I don't want to give examples because that would spoil the DELIGHT of seeing the show and/or reading his books, but it was RIVETING. The whole audience was on the edge of their seats, although as time went by some of that might be due to everyone needing a WEE. The first half was on for ninety minutes, and looking around me I realised that I would not be the only one Gettig A Bit Desperate, for LO! it was a room containing approx 500 men over the age of 50. THUS when the first half ended Simon and I were up and OUT before the applause had finished, thus getting to the BAR and LOO (respectively) before enormous QUEUES began. Even by the time I had emerged from the loo there was a queue stretching down TWO flights of stairs and across another room, so I was relieved to be relieved.

The second half was just as EXCITING, and also quite MOVING. Part of the THRUST of the show was that the Beatles did not BECOME interesting people in 1969 when "Get Back" was filmed, but had ALWAYS been like that, and the case was WELL MADE. I don't really NEED more reasons to love The Beatles, but the show was full of examples of them just being ACE, which I liked a LOT.

When it was all over I was lurking around in the lobby when someone came over and said "Can I take your picture?" This was due to the fact that I was wearing my TEATLES t-shirt, and the person asking was one of the editors. I gleefully agreed, and just as she took the picture another chap came RUNNING over, whipped off his jumper, and revealed exactly the same t-shirt underneath. HOORAH!

Teatle bots omg pic.twitter.com/wM1rZpsWjZ

— Eleanor Gray (@missy_el) October 7, 2022

It was a delightful end to a DELIGHTTFUL evening. Now all we need is for Mr Lewisohn to get back to his typewriter and finish the next book please!

posted 10/10/2022 by MJ Hibbett

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