Can you Help?

The Beatles’ famous, first Sunday Night at the London Palladium appearance on ITV was wiped soon after broadcast. Audio still exists of the group’s main performance but do any of you super-Beatle fans out there know of anyone who taped the Fab Four’s ‘teaser’ segment at the start of the show? Or maybe you know of someone who took photos of their TV set during the live broadcast? We’d love to hear from you. Full Story below:

On the 13th October 1963 the Beatles topped the bill on ITV’s Sunday Night At The London Palladium. It was the TV event of the week and to many, particularly the older generation, headlining the show was seen as bigger achievement than any Top Ten record. In 1963, the top slot on ITV’s weekly variety show was undoubtedly the highest rung on the showbiz ladder of success. The Beatles had made the grade. The programme was broadcast live every Sunday evening and each week the British public watched in their millions. There were frenzied scenes around the theatre all day – the stage door was a raging battleground of policemen, commissionaires and clamouring fans. When the show was aired, the screaming fans who’d made it inside the theatre were heard loud and clear through television sets across the land. The UK had been struck by a new epidemic and within six months the world would follow. Then as now – there was no cure. The furore caused the British press to take note and within days the term ‘Beatlemania’ was coined. Sadly, the programme was wiped. We do know that the Beatles played From Me To You, I’ll Get You, She Loves You and Twist and Shout before following time-honoured tradition and joining Bruce Forsyth onto the Palladium’s revolving stage, cheerily waving their fab farewells to the show’s theme tune, Showtime. An audio tape of Brucie’s 5-4-3-2-1 intro and the Beatles’ four song performance still exists and is easily searchable on youTube. But…that night there was also a special ‘teaser’ at the top of the show. Usually the programme’s opener was a ‘high-kicking’ formation routine by the sparkly (and scantily) clad troupe known as the ‘Tiller Girls’, but to whip up maximum hysteria both in the theatre and with the viewers at home, when the heavy velvet, tasselled curtains opened, instead of the expected plumed dancers it was the Beatles playing the opening verse of Please Please Me. Compere Bruce Forsyth tantalised the viewers and audience alike, announcing that the Beatles would be back in 42 minutes. Does anybody out there know of anyone who tape recorded the Beatle’s ‘teaser’ segment? (No, not on VHS madam!!). Or do you know anyone who may have photographed the TV set and captured the Beatles actually playing that night? Any material, information or memories will help with research for a new Beatles book. Please, please send us a message if you can help!