The Beatles Anthology

July '66 to June '67 (1x6)

: 22, 1995

The glory of this story is that if you didn't know it, the surprises are truly astonishing and if you do, the delight is in the detail and this episode contains so many astonishing advances and reverses, setbacks and recoveries and in such quick-time that in fiction many of them would have been edited out. Our heroes 'snub' Mrs. Marcos of Manila and a nation's fury turns on them after three years of world-at-their-feet. Then it is thought John suggested in an interview that they are more important than Jesus. He explains himself, but too late to prevent Third Reich-style pubic burnings of their work. They live this down but retire from touring and go into the studio which brings an amazed world the might whirligig of Sgt. Pepper, Penny Lane and Strawberry Fields here on the screen in surreal and glorious colour. They sing Baby You're A Rich Man, and they all are, but they don't buy an island in Greece. That is about the only crazy thing that doesn't happen in this episode.