Original subtitles

Because the world is round, it turns me

on Because

the world

is round

Thank you.

I was really involved at the beginning because I nurtured a dream of that

project with George.

For him, this project was not only doing a show, but it was also an opportunity

to maybe Having the Beatles member left alive, working together on a creative

project again.

You know, I was introduced originally to the Cirque by my daughter when she took

me to the show in the Albert Hall in London.

And then George and Olivia took me to see O in Las Vegas.

George, because he was friends, I think, with Guy.

started talking about a collaboration between the Cirque and the Beatles.

There was the possibility that Cirque wanted to use Cirque's interpretation of

Beatles music with possibly musicians on stage, just like the, you know, normal

Cirque shows.

And I said, no, it's got to be the Beatles music.

brief that I was given was you've got to have 90 minutes of music and you create

that from anything you recorded with the Beatles since 1962.

George knew where all the bodies were, you know, that bass line that wasn't

used, we can put that there, there's a drum for it, you know. But there was

of like some new hip guy.

It sounds all very nice for a minute, but, you know, suddenly the new hip guy

is, there's another new hip guy.

So we got George Martin, who has always been hip.

I mean, I've lived with these songs for 40 -odd years.

It's great to listen to.

I started with my father, started working on this two years ago.

I suppose when I started doing it, I was full of fear and loathing and dread and

thinking, God, I've been given a Beatles tape and they want me to do something

to it and people are going to hate me for this.

I mean, it's a good retrospective song. We've been running around in bloody

small circles so far.

OK.

All I've got, I've got nothing left.

I felt like somehow an impostor, obviously, the syndrome of the imposter.

Who am I to be there, sitting in Studio 2 with George Martin

and dreaming of which track, which music we would play with.

But also we're changing the actual track themselves.

And this is a tightrope of taste that we're walking, because...

Once you start tempering with beetle material, you're tempering with the Holy

Grail. It's like, sort of, if I went in and we overlaid guitars and made things

sound more rocky, people would go completely bonkers and you'd find out my

had been burned down.

Like yesterday, visiting all of those places and signs of that

mythology, we went to Liverpool.

I feel like a pilgrim.

So I feel really excited, actually.

Delighted, excited, honored, and panicked.

I was told in the very beginning that this was going to be, or this was

an impossible show.

And this is what I deal with from day one.

Honestly,

I was very, very nervous thinking that from the time that they broke up,

the world is hoping a comeback.

You gotta go straight to your final destination, okay?

Don't do the whole path.

Okay, number two, go.

I play Sergeant Pepper.

Sergeant Pepper is the band leader at this stage of the creation. I would say

he's more on Pepper.

I guess I'm a mix of maybe of George Martin in a certain way.

And Dominique told me also that Sergeant Pepper, for him, represented the father

of Paul McCartney because he played the trumpet in a band.

Instead of just dully telling the Beatles story, okay, it started here and

ended there and that was this, this and that, I tried to touch the main emotions

that went throughout their experience.

Building this show as a rock and roll poem.

I'm from Johannesburg.

I'm from the east side of Johannesburg, which is called Cartier Home.

They chose me for one of the characters, you know.

for the Beatles music. At that time, I didn't even know about the Beatles and

all that, you know. I was like, okay, I don't know about those people, so I'll

know everything when I get here.

You just arrived.

Nice to meet you. Welcome.

We're hoping for you. We're not hoping anymore, actually. I'm really glad

here. So it's going to be a shock, a cultural shock for you, but welcome

We're going to take care of you.

Thank you for being here.

Evelyn, you play with Athan.

Athan's version, it's tough.

It's tough.

Now, can I have... Everyone think, hoompa, hoompa, everybody's got one.

Hoompa, hoompa, stick it up your jumpa. Okay, so, stand by.

Three, four.

Hoompa, hoompa, everybody's got one. Hoompa, hoompa, stick it up your jumpa.

Hoompa, hoompa.

Can you imagine we're the first company that in 35 years has been able to make a

deal, a business deal with the Beatles. We're partners with the Beatles. It's

big.

The Beatles with the name they have and us who never give away creative control.

How could you find, you know, creative consensus?

Well, partnerships are difficult.

If you've ever been married, you know that. But partnerships where there's

than two people are even more complicated exponentially.

Cirque has done a lot of business with our company, MGM Mirage, and it's been a

two -part partnership.

Love is unique because we have a third partner, which is the Apple Group that

represents, of course, the Beatles.

One of the things about the Beatles, and the shareholders now, it's sort

of like an inverted democracy, right? That if one person doesn't want to do

something, then we don't do it. It's not like three can overrule one, right?

And I know that he's on one of those 30 wires.

I just want to thank George, because he's the one who just came here to us.

And thank you for taking the opportunity.

We lost George and George's input into the show, and that's a great

loss.

It made people more determined to see the project through, you know, and make

work. And we would have done that anyway if George had been alive. It just

made us all more determined to do it for George.

I think so. It did me anyway.

Little darling, it's been a long, cold, lonely winter.

Little darling, it feels like years since it's been here.

Here comes the sun. You know, I've always loved Cirque. You know, in the

years I've seen it, when it was in a tent in Santa Monica in L .A. So I had

problem with it. the Cirque du Soleil attitude, you know, because it's like

fantasy world, which I loved.

We've always liked to associate ourselves with Slightly crazy people

are slightly crazy Artists are slightly crazy, you know, so to work with the

Cirque We're drawing on that same attraction

I met Dominic actually from the inception of this idea, and I think he

understood John's songs especially very well.

It's not so much John's characters personified. I don't think that they're

that so much as to really express the songs well.

When I went to Montreal to watch, to have a visual imagination was really

difficult for me because I kept thinking, well, why is that on the

doesn't look right. And what are they going to do when they're over there? And

they were saying, no, no, no, no, that's not going to be there. And you have to

imagine the stage is going to come up and they're going to be gone and that's

going to be dark.

So that was actually a whole new...

experience for me and also you know you have your concept about a song you know

you might Eleanor Rigby to you might be some something it might be something

different to me and that's the beauty of music you know the vision of it is in

your head

I

look at you all see the love

I feel strongly about the two characters from the beginning of the show. Yeah.

That, you know, we have to let go of that.

At some point. These characters will be emotionally very charged at this point

of the show.

Can I speak freely?

Yeah.

Yeah. I don't particularly like those characters.

And I don't know if it's, you know, from what I represent.

I'll tell you what.

In the beginning, he was being too much to the minimum.

If we count all the titles that we have, we have 14 John, 13 Paul, 4 George, and

1 Ringo. Yeah, you know what?

What I'm saying is that we're concerned about trying to respect the balance in

between.

Yeah, yeah, but you know, you use John Paul, you know, like the early day one.

This is the time that they were the best, you know.

And anyway,

it's not just about that. It's about what is the best.

What made you feel the best?

Hey Jude, don't make it bad Take

a sad song and make it better

Remember to let her into your heart

Then you can start to make it better

I would say first that I was given a lot of freedom to

write and direct this show by the Beatles.

And I really appreciated that.

Knowing that the balance in between them is a very fragile one.

If you have a school photograph and everybody's clutching around, the first

thing you do is...

Where am I?

Don't look for your friend, you look for yourself.

So that if Paul is listening to a mix of a song, he's going to listen to

himself. And same with Ringo, you know, and Olivia and Yoko similarly do the

same thing. They are, in a way, looking after their own territory, perhaps with

more care.

Of course they're looking at the broad elements too, but you have to juggle

that and you have to sort of make sure that everybody is satisfied.

that we have a consensus of approval.

My background is theatre in England. I'm an actor.

You come to an environment like this, which is incredibly challenging for an

artist because the nature of the company and the shows it does, it's very much

like a factory as well.

I'm not used to big productions.

I'm used to people that I know, people that I understand.

doing same things and all that, you know, so it's quite... It is hard

you're trying to work through not just interpreters but coaches as well and

assistant directors.

And you're right at the bottom of the food chain and you're trying to get

through so many different people to articulate what you're trying to say,

concepts, and plus also in the show itself, you know, there's a director and

there are eight or nine different coaches.

See you in Vegas.

See you in Vegas. Forget the snow. It's over.

Forget the snow. It's over.

The devil is here.

The devil is here.

Take care of yourself.

Have a safe trip.

God bless.

Well, you would think that you couldn't go wrong with Cirque du Soleil and the

Beatles, and I hope that's true.

But risk in the entertainment business is just about as scary as risk in a

game. There are no sure bets.

The aggregated investment in the Beatles show approaches $180

million.

As long as it's empty, it costs me about $5 million a month, so I'm incentivized

to get the showroom up and running.

Everything was on fast track to do all the negotiations with Cirque, Mirage,

Apple, and do the storyboards and build the theatre. All was happening at the

same time, so it was pretty frenetic at times.

It still is, actually.

My first reaction was, I know where we are now.

I know the world we're in, and that's the most important thing to me.

For the first time, it actually encouraged me. It went, I'm going to

come to work tomorrow.

enough to come in and say, oh, I get it now, I see what you want now, and that

makes sense, that makes sense, and that makes sense, because we've had five

months of not really knowing how to navigate through this.

I think we're going to be able to see all the characters, and we're going to

sense the emotion on stage, because it's very intimate.

So I think this is a very good thing.

Welcome in the casino.

I'm very happy about the intimacy of the theatre. It's a room good for...

actors and characters like much more than other let's say big impressive

scenery but where the human being is like very small or like part of the of

a machine and that leads me to what i think should be one of your challenge

state of mind for this creation is what we would call the showmanship okay

sometimes

It happens, okay? The trap is open, but we need the stage to be closed.

And it's not working, and you're all alone on stage.

And I want you not to leave, not to escape, but to stay there and to make

show as good as it was one minute ago.

Up until the light turns green.

Did you ever stop old?

Many times. Many times.

Yeah, you have to say, so we go on stage and make all kind of improvise. Yeah.

Sometimes take time like 10 minutes, you know, 15 minutes. Yeah. You're doing,

doing, doing, and suddenly, yeah, there's a green light, the show is

We could say, okay, you go on stage, and you improvise.

Okay,

let's have fun.

Let's play with it. That's the first reaction you have to ask.

So this is why I insist on that, that, okay, we're panicking now. Let's have

fun. Okay, let's play with that. We have nothing to lose somehow.

Yeah, okay. So save the show.

I don't think he's as piggy as that.

I think he has to save.

He has to keep some control. Yeah, exactly.

Okay.

I don't know, because now we're working with current, like, professional people

who've learned things from the school and all that.

Because with me and what you call pansura and campus dance, I never went

school for that. I just learned it, you know, from the street, from the street

of South Africa, from Johannesburg.

So I'm learning from them as well, and there's small things that I can

pick up and then make use of them.

So how many time? We have 10 minutes?

Well, we could work on Lady Madonna.

No?

Just show me. I just want to see you performing together face to face.

Working with Natasha is a different thing because I only work with guys.

I was even, at the first time, I was even scared to...

Because I'm not used to work with ladies.

I'm not just dancing because I know the style, I know the routine and all. But

I'm giving.

I want to make people happy at the end of the day. I want to sit down here and

know that people are happy, you know.

Wednesday morning papers didn't come.

Because the listening sessions have been very important for analysing the

theatre, which, let's face it, isn't an ideal place for putting out music.

We're used to working in a studio where everything is geared to a good sound.

Now here we have an auditorium which is very, very large and it's oval, almost

circular.

Above what you can see, there is as much space as there has been ever.

We did allow for the most sophisticated audio system ever devised, in my view.

They had to have speakers everywhere.

I had to pay for the speakers, too.

And they were in the seats, and they were in the seat in front of you, and

were behind your right ear and your left ear, and they end up with several

thousands of speakers.

and they felt like we have to give them the music as if the Beatles were in the

room performing.

I think it's something like a historic moment to do this show.

All the characters and all the people in the show, we realize that.

But as a stage performer,

The way that I will play, the way that I will approach my character is the same.

Dominique says, oh, I remember that your father is a policeman, and I see you

being Sergeant Pepper. And strangely, when I tried the uniform, it was like

photo of my father.

So it was very special. And also because my father is now in the hospital

because he has the Alzheimer's disease.

He doesn't remember me. He cannot say who I am and that I am his son.

So it touched me greatly.

I'm of a different generation. I was born in late 69.

So I was born and they broke up.

Since I was about 17 or 16,

Working in studios with him.

And I learnt a lot through the fact that his hearing was failing and so he

needed another set of ears.

And that was my training.

And a fantastic honour. I mean, despite him being my dad.

He is George Martin.

Wednesday morning at five o 'clock as the day begins.

It's funny, actually. The studio he's chairman of has just been sold.

And he said to me, he goes, I might take early retirement.

You know, he's much younger mentally than a lot of other people in the music

industry.

Much more keen on innovation. And this appeals to him, this show.

He may not have the years he had.

And he's old, but he still has the brain.

He never accepts second best.

And I think that's the best thing for me with him on this project, is I've had

to do a lot of chopping around, a lot of changes.

And I know that if he thinks it's good, then it's

good.

We wanted to use George Harrison's song, Why My Guitar Gently Weeps, and the

version that everybody knows, which is on the albums, was going to be used in

the show.

But then Dominic, who has been trawling through the anthology all the time,

listened to one of the tracks.

where George virtually made a demo, and he liked this very much, and I did agree

with him. It had a wistful quality that the master didn't have.

There was a version of Guitar Gently Weeps that everyone wanted to use except

me. It's really beautiful and really intimate, and I was worried that it

not sustain in a big theater.

And it was really Danny that said, no, no, no, they have to use it.

So everyone sort of turned to us and said, well, what can we do with it? You

know, mixing the tracks, doing what we've done. And there was nothing that

could take from another Beatles song.

Hello, Olivia.

Nice to see you. Come in, come into the body of the church. I was really quite

nervous about it.

Because this song is such a tender song for George.

And George isn't with us anymore.

And my responsibility in adding music to this weighed very heavily on me.

I don't think you can put into words what was George like as a person.

You know, he says in some of his songs, beware of sadness.

All things must pass.

Life goes on within you and without you.

And that's... sort of practical advice that I have to apply in my life, he's

here.

The string players, they realize the significance of, you know,

it'll be your last string session.

Yeah, absolutely.

And playing a Beatles string session.

And at the end of it, they gave you a big bouquet of flowers.

They gave me two dozen red roses.

Normally they hand out invoices.

I was knocked out by that.

How long was this, Armand? Was it 45 seconds?

A crash with the machine?

Stand by, please. Same place. We had an automation crash.

Okay, Armand, you tell us when you're ready to bring them down.

Okay, so we have a couple of events I would say that we need to prepare for.

Saturday, as you know, we have also some visitors from Apple. Paul McCartney

will be here also, and we're going to do the listening of music with him.

So they will have a lot of people around this week, so we just need to get

focused at the same place.

Charlie, go.

Do you know what you're doing on Saturday?

Not yet.

Because I'm sure it would be enormously helpful if you could show Paul as much.

of the show, visually, as is possible.

Because he hasn't seen it and he's terribly, intensely curious about it.

The thing is that with the machine, with the state of the process now, if we

launch ourselves in a complicated act, it might stop for an hour and a half.

This is where we're at.

Like this afternoon, we worked four hours and then we were ready to run

And we wait 45 minutes because everything was turned upside down. You

change things like that. They come to rehearsals.

Exactly.

There's no problem.

But not that we're in a context of it's all thumbs up, thumbs down. No, no.

We're not there.

I don't want to.

Dominique, we're going to share, but we stick on the plan.

Yeah, this is what we do. We're on a worse time frame here.

No way we're going back there. This is staging.

Say no call.

Yes, it's not true that we'll expose ourselves to things that are unfinished,

that we'll create another debate for two hours, long letters, and excuse me, but

we're past that.

We're thrilled to have you here Everyone is butterflies in the stomach. Good.

That's good. I like to keep everyone in a state of tension.

My only problem was nobody knew what we were going to do.

I'd say, well, what is the show? They'd say, don't worry, it's OK.

They'd say, it's OK.

The Cirque will be good. The Cirque and the Beatles will be very good.

I'm going, no, no, no. And then finally they came up with this idea that the

show is based on with the...

The ladders and bringing up the building, World War II and Helena Rigby

through. So, you know, I felt, oh, that's enough.

It's all I needed. Just thought, what are you going to hang the show on?

Stop. Stop it.

Make sure that they stop it.

But it's much taller than I thought it would be.

I'd like to have a speaker like this. If you were doing a concert, you wouldn't

have enough there. No, it's true.

But then again, we wouldn't be in the round like this. That's right.

The only time we ever were in the round was our first American

gig in Washington.

And they stuck us there and kept asking Ringo to move his kit around. Physically

to move him around. He's fine.

I remember poor Ringo was facing... And we'd never seen the likes of it. And

they'd say, you know, you've got to do this. No.

So, yeah, because there's audience over there. Well, they just, they are backed.

No, no, no, you've got to move. So we're moving.

Poor old Rinker, picking up his bloody drum kit, repositioning it between

numbers. And then, to make it worse, Jelly Babies.

Yeah, that's right. The stage was... We'd said that our favourite suite was

Jelly Babies, so all the Americans, like, threw them out, was back at Jelly

Babies, and the whole bloody floor was, like, blue.

I just loved the front line of that band.

You know, John Paul and George were that band.

And in Liverpool, if they were playing, it'd be like a band I would go and see

if I wasn't playing in the band I was with. And then, you know, by chance,

was a knock on the door, 12 o 'clock in the afternoon, and Brian Epstein said,

would you play with the Beatles just for today?

And I did, and that's how we became friends.

We're just a couple of kids walking around town in black with a guitar

over our backs, just walking down the streets like that. So I remember that,

very beginnings, or just going to John's house and learning chords and playing

things. Then it would be like in hotel rooms and say, OK, I've got a bit of an

idea. So you'd fire off each other.

And it nearly always took us about three hours, top.

We never took any longer than three hours.

Every day we did it, every single time we came to do it, we did it. We finished

the song.

We had a knack for it. We understood what we were trying to do.

Eleanor Rigby died in the church and was buried along with her name.

Nobody came, Father McKenzie, wiping the dirt from his hands as he walks from

the grave.

No one was saved.

All the lonely people, where do they all come from?

All the lonely people, where do they all belong?

Strange, isn't it?

Well, for me, what's really strange about this is remembering

writing.

these things, you know, which is so little.

A little guitar or a piano, a little bit of paper and a pencil, the back of an

envelope. Exactly.

And a sergeant paper or something.

So it's just a little process.

And look what's happened to it.

It is amazing.

It's very difficult to escape this heritage that we have.

I've been having memories brought back every day of my life.

There will be a little not -Beetle fan somewhere who says, they shouldn't do

that, they should leave the masters as we know them.

But we're embarking on a new direction here.

Okay, no noise up there.

It's critical. No noise up there.

Louder the sound. Then we're not going to... Yeah, I know. It

must

be all right. Okay, let's go.

Sorry.

Okay. I love the shadow sequence.

You liked it? Yeah, yeah.

I was playing it safe this afternoon.

I'm glad I came.

Don't be nervous about this. This is something to not be nervous about. This

really great. I can play you some more and have your opinion on that.

I'm sorry for the rest. It takes time. Come on, man.

We understand.

We've been at this a long time, too.

So a piano will appear.

I loved the talking because it put us in that environment, you know, in the

studio and the fun we used to have before we made these records, which, you

know, was always about the music. But the chatter I loved. I thought it made

it... It seemed like it could be now, in a way.

I thought they could have made me a bit taller.

That's the only thing I thought.

My God, can't I be taller now?

It's in my shadow.

How did the guys get together to do a tune right? Because you were always on

of one another like this. I think that's a good thing. It shows the humor of

recording. I mean, we always said, you know, one of the great... How could you

hook up with them?

No, I'll tell you why. That's what I was going to say. I'll tell you why.

Because he did Peter Tellers, The Goons. He did all the comedy records. My

favorite memory of you lot is when we were doing Kite, and I had to do the

harmonium. and I became the artist, and you four were the producers.

Quite right.

And you were saying, yeah, another take, please, George.

And I was pumping my guts out.

And they were doing it deliberately. They were keeping me going, you know.

You just try one more, George.

It's not quite right.

George Martin was like the grown -up in the group.

George was... We were like the kids.

In fact, they used to call us the boys.

That was the working title of this show, wasn't it?

And we always used to joke, you know, but, like, we were, like, in the later

years, we were, like, 28.

We were still being called the boys.

We were, like, married with kids and stuff, you know, the boys.

But, you know, so George Martin was fantastic.

He could do so much, you know. He could guide us.

He could understand what we were doing. He could encourage us. And he could also

pick up the experimental ideas that we threw at him.

I mean, all I had was a bit of tape and a pair of brass fingers.

And now it's incredible what the computer power is.

And stretching sounds and bending them, you know, putting them in different

keys.

It's amazing what you can do.

You work.

How you're told to work. You work with what technology you have. And now,

because everyone's got so much technology, they take forever.

We were told to make four songs a day. So we did.

Not just ready to mix some other time.

Mixed, finished.

Put it up on a shelf. There's Michelle.

Right, let's do Nowhere Man.

Put that up on the shelf.

So that meant at the end of a week, you'd done 20 songs.

So we, you know, early albums, we only did... Because, like, the first album

a day.

I'm pleased he's happy. I'm pleased he likes.

I'm relieved.

Yeah, me too.

I'm relieved.

I'm not sure what I'd do.

I'm not sure what you'd do if you wanted me to change the music. It would rather

bug everyone out, wouldn't it, really?

Now the ball is on my camera.

Do you think you'll like it?

Huh? Do you think you will like it?

I wonder what the smell was. Of course you will. Because he's only coming the

day before the premiere, because he's in production right now. He cannot come to

a session like this.

So I thought to have you... He'll love it. He's heard this music. He loves it.

It's a cool idea.

The way you put the sound and everything is beautiful.

He's never sounded so good.

They mixed 15 minutes of the music first and we went to hear it and I was blown

away.

And I just kept saying, make it crazier.

You know, you can go broader as far as I was concerned.

Not for broad sake, but just because it was so cool.

Right. Once I opened out the drums, I had to open out the vocal instead of

opening it out.

I don't know. This is called quite... Yeah, yeah. But that's nice.

Yeah,

what to say?

We just watched a little bit of it. We think it's fantastic, very exciting.

I think you're great acrobats, great performers.

And I think it's going to be a fantastic show.

Really fantastic.

But I want you to work harder.

Harder. Much harder.

Thank you.

Oh, every morning before I get out of bed, I put those Beatles on, yeah, and

then I go to room service.

Yeah, no, I don't.

I don't.

You know, if it's on, it's on.

Sometimes if I'm, you know, I'll play Beatle Rex and say, well, you know,

listen to that on that track.

You know, any combination seems that the Beatle tracks work because the tracks

are strong enough.

That's the deal.

Ringo loves the fact that he's a great drummer. I mean, really, I've learned

good a drummer he is because I have the ability to remove him from a song and

then put him back on. So the song becomes... He plays the song unlike any

drummer. He doesn't play necessarily a fixed sort of, this is my drum part.

He'll play the song. He really is a song -playing drummer.

But he has a groove. He has a groove that's his own. So if I can take him

playing one song and stick it in another, He loves it because it's like,

know, it's me, but it's more me.

I dream at 13 was to

play drums.

I started in hospital.

I was in hospital with tuberculosis for a year, and so to keep us busy.

I've learned to knit.

So they'd give you, like, things to do because we couldn't do a lot.

And so then every couple of weeks, like a music teacher would come in with

little drums, tambourines, maracas.

I fell in love with the drum, and I wouldn't be in the hospital band unless

got a drum.

And then I came out of hospital. I made my own snare drum out of a biscuit tin

and pieces of firewood as sticks.

Couldn't play, but I could hit.

You know, and that's how it started.

Now they give me a drum set a week.

You know, if I want one.

It's so hard. You got nothing, you get nothing. You got everything, they'll

you anything.

Well,

I think that the show has to have some gritty or sad moments, too, because that

was life. That is life, you know? And it can't just be happy -go -lucky from the

beginning to end.

I remember when I went to the cult building at Yoko Ono's apartment to

her the concept of the show.

And I remember the moment of John Lennon's murder.

And when I came up there, I was really like, I was really shaken

by just being there, you know.

And he offered me a cup of tea. He told me, welcome into this.

And then I just felt more comfortable and simply I expressed.

what I thought the show should be, and I left the meeting with great

encouragement and strength.

I read the news today, oh boy.

Julia, as we know, she's the character of a song on a white album, but she's

also John Lennon's mother, who was killed by a policeman driving a car when

was a teenager.

And as you can hear him singing Julia, our mother, in his solo

career, you can appreciate how sensitive he was about her.

Then, is it too sensitive to be there with the blessing of the Beatles?

I think that, you know, I'm very glad that Julia is something that they're

working on.

And John had an incredible, incredible love for his mother.

And he was very, very saddened that his mother never saw him become so famous.

And that was the one thing that he regretted all the time.

Time again, people say to me, what's your favorite?

Beatles song. And I don't really know because there were so many of them. But

I had to pick one of John's, it would probably be Strawberry Fields Forever.

It's such an extraordinary song.

And the first time I heard it, we'd been, up to that point, we'd been making

albums which we had to rush until they made the decision, wisely and rightly,

not to do any more touring, but to concentrate on recording.

And the very first song we recorded, After that decision was John Strawberry

Fierce. And as usual, I put myself on a high chair, like a bar stool, and John

stood in front of me with his acoustic guitar and started singing.

And I was knocked

out. I thought, what an extraordinary sound. What a beautiful sound.

He was a marvellous man, but he...

He was never really satisfied with anything he did.

In the year before he died, I spent a night with him and we talked about old

times. And we had a lovely evening. And then suddenly, out of the blue, he said

to me, you know, George, if I could, I'd record everything we did again.

I said, you can't be serious, John.

I said, we did some great stuff. What are you on about? He said...

We could have done it better.

I said, what about Strawberry Fields?

He looked at me over his glasses and he said, it's definitely Strawberry Fields.

And I thought, gosh, you know, I practically bled for that song.

Nothing is real And nothing to get hung about

After we did the Strawberry Fields with using the different versions, Yoko was

telling me it was nothing to do with the music at all. It was to do with...

He didn't like his voice on it, didn't like his singing on it. He had a great

voice, and yet he was always asking me to distort it, put more tape on, I can't

bear that, you know. I think that also John had this vision in his mind, which

was a fantastic sound, and he wanted it to be realised, but he was never very

practical. He would talk to me in terms of colours and so on, and dreams,

and I had to pin him down, saying, OK...

What instrument would you use? How do we get this thing off the ground?

But he didn't really want to bother with that. He wanted to create something

that would just flow.

Picture yourself in a boat on a river with tangerine

trees.

Now, I want you to fix me up so that I can do one of those things.

You mean her? With harnesses? Go join her up there.

Well, no problem.

With your presence, we do the traditional lion dance. That's the first

run it with public.

So you are our lion.

And we hope that you don't eat us.

Well, we try to run it as much as possible, smoothly for you guys.

And enjoy everything with love.

Attract me like no other lover.

Something in the way she moves me.

I don't want to leave her now.

You know I believe in how.

Go, go, go, go. They're all late.

They're all late.

All right, throw it out that side.

His gas mask. Where his gas mask is?

Yeah, well, he's going to come to fame.

Because Guy's going to... Why don't you just go to that page? Sure, sure.

I mean, you know, what is it? It's breezy.

This come together is not a breezy song. Come together is a song of political

coming together. Because you're not inspired with John's song. I'm really

inspired, honestly. Oh, great, thank you. Tell me what you're inspired about

the world. He's singing so well, and I feel so sorry for him because nothing's

going on.

It's just making it like, oh, atmospheric is the word. But it's not

This whole thing is power.

Also, I have, you know, a lot of respect for him for having done this much.

And, of course, we're all still, you know, saying, well, could you just, et

cetera, et cetera.

And Olivia is going there, and I'm going there.

And because we are very protective of our husband's songs, you know.

So he's got a lot. to deal with, really.

See you later! See you later!

Yeah, exactly.

Do you think this is the departure?

This is the change for Cirque?

I mean the dancing, the staging, the different ways.

Yeah, it is. This is more musical than a Cirque show.

You could have told us.

Yeah,

you know, because I think people are going to be surprised.

In terms of not having that much... Yeah, in terms of not many acrobatic...

Yeah, that type.

Well, I don't think they expected it. The people would come for the encounters

of the Syriza and the Beatles.

Now it's a question of tidying up things and clarifying things. So that's why

it's important to get... And that's what I like about the people of Yoko.

And this is what we need, because we were not there with them.

You know, especially with Yoko and you, we're not there. And with George, I

didn't have time to go into detail of each of his songs. I want to make sure

that the details are addressed.

Like I said, at the end, we have to make decisions.

We can't do a show in a community way.

As long as there's something, each one has something going, and it's not, you

know, some focus. But it's the same thing, because that's what I always

the people I work with.

I said, it's not about who have the best ideas, it's about what is the best idea

who will prevail.

Of course, everybody has its personality, has its pride, and its ego,

totally understand that. But at the end, we're all there to serve one thing, to

serve for the public. And they're the ones who will decide who will live or

with what we do.

I'm in Montreal. I have a family. You know, I have three sons.

So the kind of sacrifice that maybe I do.

The last time I saw them was at the end of March because my father died.

When I opened the show, I just feel that I'm doing that for my father.

I bring a message from Apple, my boss, Neil Aspinall, and from Paul and Ringo

and Yoko and Olivia to wish you the very best for tonight and express their

profound respect for your skill, your energy, your courage.

One day, this will all seem like a long time ago.

So savor the moment and my best wishes.

We all know we worked really hard. It was not an easy one.

Hope the Beatles themselves, Paul Ringo, Yoko and Olivia and their family.

Tonight we have the honor to have also Cynthia Lennon, first wife of John

Lennon, who's going to be here with Julian Lennon and Sean and Danny

and all those people gathered around with what you've done, with what we've

done together.

I think it's great that, you know, bodies go.

George Harrison is dead, but we can really say that his spirit is with us.

And we gave a body to that spirit altogether.

Peace and love. I love you.

Just another day, just another day, just another day.

You told me once that you had the tantrum, but it was not.

Yeah.

How's that now?

Well, it's hard to answer that, you know.

I'm happy that we... I've been very nostalgic of the 60s, you know, all

years of...

freedom and revolution.

And I felt I was having my 20s more in a decade of cynicism, and I've been

pretty cynical myself.

And I feel like today I'm back to the roots, you know, of

dreaming that we can take a sad song and make it better, as the man said.

It turns me

It was a great experience.

I've tried to get away from the George Martin mantle, you know, George's son,

and he comes.

It's been a huge learning curve for me.

And it's your dad, you know. You spend time going through his stuff, and, you

know, in a way, a father and son team, you know, in years to come. I'll

remember this more than I'll remember the show.

I guess I'm used to all this celebrity stuff.

Even in South Africa, I've been performing for big people.

Even the president of South Africa, which is Nelson Mandela, I've performed

him. So it's not a big deal, it's not a big issue. I'm just going to do what I

do best.

You know what I'm saying?

If you hear that music, there's always poor people.

It doesn't matter if only Paul and I are sitting here. There's still four

people, do you know?

There are only two of us now.

But in spirit, there's four of us, you know?

The band begins at ten to six when Mr. K performs his tricks without a sound.

And Mr. H will demonstrate ten somersets he'll undertake on solid ground.

In being some days in preparation, a splendid time is guaranteed for all.

And tonight, Mr.

Kite is topping the grid.

I was sitting next to Ringo, so it was great because I just kept saying to him,

what a fucking great band we were.

And, you know, I should be more modest. I should be saying, oh, it was good, and

thank you very much. But I don't care now. Beatles is over. It's the body of

work. And I can now stand back and say, that was great.

You know, you think, you know, it's a long time ago.

And what's interesting is that now we are these people.

But the music still carries on. It's not our personalities, it's the music.

read the news today, oh boy.

4 ,000 holes in Blackburn, Lancashire.

And though the holes were rather small, they

had to count them all.

Now they know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall.

Just keep going.

Keep going.

Keep going.

Peace.

Peace. Peace.

Every time I heard George's voice or saw the image, you know, you just want to

pull them off the, you want to just pull them right there because it's so close.

And, you know, the voices are so intimate and so familiar, the way that

just resonate in your ear in a vibration that nobody else has.

Daddy thought it was hard for him. Made him very sad because it's so close and

yet, you know, physically unsatisfying, but spiritually very

satisfying.

Try to realize it's all within yourself.

No one else can make you change.

And to see you're really only very small and I fall in love.

You ready? I think. Okay. So what should I do now?

Do it again.

Do it again.

Right. Okay. Let's go.

Do it again. One, two, three, four.

It's the life that is not here anymore.

You know, it's that one, isn't it?

Joan was there.

But it's very different from listening to his songs and seeing a show

of it, you know.

It always makes me feel a little bit...

Well, sad is not the word. Well, it is, you know. I feel sad that she's just a

voice now.

John had a huge heart, you know, he was a good man. He was very sharp and, you

know, his quick wit.

And George in the band was my best friend.

Paul, incredible, you know, an incredible man and still the most

player out there today.

You know, it was a really, really great band.

Hey! If you don't know how lucky you are, boys, back in the U .S .S .R.

I'm very proud, of course, you know, of the music we made with the Beatles.

I can hardly believe it.

It's a slightly strange feeling, you know. It's like, I mean, I wake up some

mornings and think, you know, I was in the Beatles.

It's like there's only four people could say that in the world, in the universe,

and I'm one of them, you know.

So it's a slightly sort of strange feeling, but an amazing one.

Nothing you can do that can't be done.

Nothing you can sing that can't be sung.

Nothing you can say but you can learn how to play the game.

Easy.

Nothing you can make that can't be made.

You can't help but...

feel with the chats, with the songs, that, you know, we're all still there.

a bit like when we did Free as a Bird, when John had left us.

And we all had to sort of pretend that he was making a cup of tea in the

or something. I mean, we have to get over it, you know, because we were this,

you know, incredibly close -knit four -man band.

Each generation, as it grows up, finds the Beatles for themselves.

And now my children found it for themselves, and my grandchildren have

for themselves, and it will go on. It really will.

I'm just saying good night to you all and God bless you.

One,

two, three, four.

This happened once before I came to your door Glory fire

They said it wasn't you I saw you You peep through

your window.

I saw the light.

Stop.

I saw the light. You don't have to do it.

Just don't get anywhere near light.

Just do it as a solo. Do it on your own. Okay, let's get it.

One, two, three.

This happened once.

One, two, three. One, two, three.

Okay.

Play it again.

Yeah. Ringo. Ringo, stop.

That's not me. All right, we're going with the last verse.

Take four.

Would you promise to be true? John. And help me?

John. It feels like I'm singing in a sock.

I'm tired.

Yeah. Sure, okay. I'm cracking anyway.

The last one.

Hmm. Okay.

We're rolling.

One, two, three.

I know that you saw me.

At the last...