The Beatles Anthology

March '63 to February '64 (1x2)

: 19, 1995

The earth is moving fast beneath their speeding boots. Millions of saloon bar prophets who couldn't tell them apart had to hand it to them': "They've got something! From Liverpool, I hear - of all places." From Liverpool uber alles! They leave their Cavern Club in this episode and within months they take the ascendancy in the British pop world, and start to live the life of Riley in London. They play the Palladium, the Royal Albert Hall, The Royal Variety Show, sing Moonlight Bay with Morecambe and Wise, give a spare hit to the Rolling Stones, play hundreds of concerts in Britain, nip over to Sweden, invent Beatlemania, record I Want To Hold Your Hand (their 4th British number one in a year) and as if in a dream - while they're conquering Paris - the record goes to Number One in America three weeks before the Ed Sullivan Show in New York. If there had been no Beatles, no-one would have had the imagination to invent such a story.