This week, we perform in the largest venue of the entire tour: the enormous Liverpool Empire. Like last week's theatre, it's more than served its time as a music venue. I was talking to someone who's been here to see Jerry Lee Lewis, Gene Vincent, Roy Orbison, Marianne Faithfull and Clarence 'Frogman' Henry. Bob Dylan played here in 1996. The pub opposite Stage Door boasts of visits by Frank Sinatra, The Rolling Stones and Amy Winehouse. But there's one act that towers above all these.
The Beatles played here on about nine occasions: as The Quarrymen - where, in 1959, they came second in the final of TV Star Search; as the support act to both Roy Orbison and Little Richard; and, in December 1965: where, post-Shea Stadium and now far too big for Liverpool, they played the last concert they would ever play in this city. This is a clip from one of their appearances at the Empire, in December 1963:
The shadow of The Beatles looms large for my generation. Never alive while they were still together, for me they have been passed down as figureheads; their legendary status unquestioned and yet entirely justified. I know that I'm not the only member of the company to be excited by our proximity to their footsteps on this stage; even though it was half a century ago.
Tonight we played to our largest audience; and a figure we're not likely to beat before November: a crowd of 2,187 people.
Here's an interview I did with Joshua Jenkins (Christopher Boone), discussing what he's looking forward to about our week in Liverpool.
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