Please Please Me at Kiln Theatre Review.
Calam Lynch (Brian) & Noah Ritter (John) in Please Please Me. Photo by Mark Senior
Written by Greta for Theatre & Tonic
Disclaimer: Gifted tickets in exchange for an honest review. All views are our own
Content warnings here
Please Please Me tells a story many already think they know, at least in broad strokes. The names - Brian Epstein, John Lennon, Cilla Black - carry their own gravitational pull; yet, this production is not subsumed by any of them. What unfolds instead is something more elusive and affecting: a portrait of a man suspended between the world he envisions and the one he cannot safely live in. Epstein is well known to be the manager who helped shape the Beatles’ meteoric rise, discovering them at Liverpool’s Cavern Club and refining their image for a global audience. This production looks beyond the prestige of his contribution to the band to dig more meaningfully into his story.
Tom Wright masterfully writes characters that are not museum-piece recreations of cultural icons, but fictionalised figures - multifaceted, contradictory, and unresolved. Brian, in particular, is drawn with an emotional porousness that shows his day-to-day reality, rapidly changing with the Beatles’ rise to fame, and also explores his internal world. While John Lennon – the only Beatle to make an appearance as a proper character in the play - looms large on Brian’s story, he never eclipses it; their relationship is charged with a destabilising intimacy. Around them, figures like Cilla Black and Brian’s friends enrich the tapestry of his inner circle, providing a fuller picture of his life, personality, and struggles. I particularly appreciated the space given to Cynthia Lennon, John’s aunt Mimi and Cilla Black, where women’s contributions in shaping the Beatles’ personal and professional lives have historically been overlooked.
The cast shines with exceptional performances across the board. Calam Lynch’s portrayal of Brian is layered, fully embodying Brian’s commitment to his work and to the band, as well as the vulnerability and yearning behind it. Noah Ritter’s John is magnetic, boyish, cocky but insecure, and Ritter nails Lennon’s accent and cadence with exhilarating precision. William Robinson, Eleanor Worthington-Cox and Arthur Wilson deliver compelling performances as well, infusing humanity and complexity to an array of smaller but memorable characters.
What emerges most powerfully is the production’s excavation of internalised shame and repression. Set against a time when homosexuality was criminalised in Britain, Brian’s own being exists in a space where tenderness and danger are often indistinguishable. Homoerotic connection carries with it the threat of violence, exposure, and self-erasure, and the show does not tidy this into something easily digestible. However, this is not a work defined solely by its darkness. There is a fluidity here - of identity, of affection, of possibility - that resists fixed labels. Friendship, performance, and self-invention intertwine, all under the relentless pressure to conform. The play asks what it costs to be seen and what it costs to remain hidden, without ever reducing those questions to neat conclusions.
The decision to forgo actual Beatles songs in favour of newly created music that evokes their sound (David Shrubsle) is a quietly radical one. By not fully evoking Beatles’ nostalgia, it allows the emotional core of the show to remain unfiltered, and reinforces the commitment to not let Beatles’ massive shadow overpower Brian. The set design (Tom Piper) is also impressive: the Cavern Club is rendered perfectly - dense, immersive, almost mythical. Directing-wise (Amit Sharma), full use of the stage’s depth, the clever blocking and inventive scene transitions make the production move seamlessly, always visually interesting and alive.
The work lingers, offering new emotional textures long after the final moment has passed. Instead of watching the show from a distance, I felt completely pulled in, participating in and caring about the stories it expertly weaved. You may have read about Brian Epstein’s life, about his connection to John Lennon, about the cultural waves they have shaped and inhabited. You can arrive with context, prior knowledge, even expectations, but it won’t prepare you for the quiet grief that will hit you like a freight train. Rather than telling us how to feel, Please Please Me gifts us the conditions in which feeling becomes unavoidable; the result is moving beyond words.
Please Please Me is playing at the Kiln Theatre until the 29th of May
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
