This year marks the 50th Anniversary of The Beatles’ US debut. Two weeks later, they returned home having made broadcasting history and, by cracking the USA, achieved what no other British band had yet managed to achieve. ‘Sex, Drugs And Rock ‘N’ Roll - I Wish’, coming to The Roses Theatre in Tewkesbury on Wednesday April 2, sees Sir Paul McCartney’s younger brother, Mike McGear McCartney, tell his side of the story using family photographs and anecdotes. Secrets and little known facts are bound to surface as he reveals all on his post-war childhood and subsequent journey into showbiz.
Mike McCartney’s family affairs have been turned into legend, and his childhood home in Liverpool is now a landmark visited by Beatles fans from all over the world. Aided by the photographs taken of him from an early age, ‘Sex, Drugs And Rock ‘n’ Roll - I Wish’ is Mike’s non-scripted recollection of a unique life beginning in 1944 at the end of World War II. Audiences will hear how he became an integral part of the 60’s Merseybeat era, how Scaffold subverted BBC Children’s TV, how Rod Stewart and Freddie Starr woke Mike’s relatives and how Jimi Hendrix became Mike’s backing musician. They will also find out about the time George Harrison pinched Joe Brown’s guitar and discover why Billy Connolly had to separate Mike from Michael Parkinson. All of these amusing tales and more are told with the sharpest of Liverpudlian wit by the man who calls Sir Paul McCartney “our kid”.
When Mike was a teenager, Paul returned home from a trip to Hamburg with a camera as a gift, which sparked Mike’s lifelong passion of photography; Beatles Manager Brian Epstein nicknamed Mike ‘Flash Harry’ as he could be seen taking numerous photographs of the hysteria surrounding the band. While Paul sat in one bedroom honing his guitar skills, Mike would be sat in the dark in the next room, developing his beloved photos. Mike is now an independently celebrated photographer and in 2000 Q Magazine commissioned his photographs for their Greatest Rock ‘n’ Roll Photographs Of All Time. Later, eleven of his photographs were bought and exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery and, in 2010, Martin Scorsese requested his skills for a work-in-progress film. He has also written a children’s book entitled ‘Sonny Joe And The Ringdom Rhymes’ and received an Honorary Fellowship from Liverpool John Moores University at Liverpool Cathedral.
‘Sex, Drugs And Rock ‘n’ Roll - I Wish’ is a rare chance to be a fly on the wall of the famous McCartney family.
Tickets cost £16 with concessions available and can be purchased from The Roses Box Office on 01684 295074.
