Picture: David Munn
Shake It Up Baby! continues at the Epstein Theatre, Liverpool until 11 October 2025.
Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩
In 2019, writer Ian Salmon scored an instant hit with his new musical Girls Don’t Play Guitars, based on the little-known story of The Liverbirds. A man with a passion for music history, he is back with Shake It Up Baby!, which has opened this week at Liverpool’s newly relaunched Epstein Theatre.
Inspired by Allan Williams’ autobiography The Man Who Gave The Beatles Away and based largely on painstaking research by historian David Bedford, Salmon’s latest show charts the rise of a scruffy gang of mates, widely considered the worst group in Liverpool, to becoming the band that shook the world.
How a rather less than fab bunch of teenagers ended up as the Fab Four is rather sketchily remembered by most, with the period following their famous signing with Brian Epstein overshadowing what went before. It was, however, local bar and club owner and promoter Williams who originally galvanised the then Silver Beetles into supporting Johnny Gentle on a tour of Scotland, before signing them to a club contract in Hamburg, where they gradually began to find an identity.
With his usual flair for blending great storytelling with sharp dialogue, Salmon uses the autobiographical catalyst of Williams himself to drive the narrative. In a perfect piece of casting, Andrew Schofield captures every aspect of a man wryly looking back on the extraordinary events that occurred between 1959 and 1962, and he does so with weary wit and more than the occasional shake of the hips.
A talented cast of actor-musicians play a multitude of roles, and the music, under the slick supervision and arrangement of George Francis, ranges through many of the band’s early covers as well as bringing us the hits of some of their rivals. While the supporting cast gives us glimpses of the huge number of people who shaped the journey, the central quartet delivers performances that are outstanding both vocally and instrumentally.
Michael Hawkins is no stranger to the role of John Lennon, and has the most authentic dialect among them. Making a fine debut here, James Jackson is hugely appealing, and very convincing, as a baby-faced George Harrison. Nick Sheedy pulls off a nifty feat as both Pete Best and Ringo Starr, a transformation that is as effective as it is wittily done. Guy Freeman’s Paul McCartney might occasionally have lapses of dialect, but his guitar playing is unassailable. Kieran Andrew, meanwhile, is captivating as the artistically inclined and ill-fated Stuart Sutcliffe, before returning later in the story as the smooth talking Brian Epstein who sweeps up the band from under Williams’ nose.
Two more sharp pieces of casting are Jess Smith as Williams’ ever-supportive wife Beryl, and Grace Galloway who, as well as becoming Sutcliffe’s love-interest Astrid Kirchherr also gives some absolutely stunning powerhouse vocals.
Both in Liverpool and Hamburg, it is that club scene that provides the energy for the boys’ development into megastars and for the show’s momentum. Director Stephen Fletcher seamlessly blends the storytelling with the music, and choreography by WOW Studios really creates the steamy atmosphere of the multitude of venues depicted along the way.
With so many rapid-fire scene changes, it is a bold and hugely effective move from designer Alfie Heywood and associate Christopher McCourt to strip the stage right back to its bare walls. In this space Ciaran Cunningham’s dramatic lighting transforms the simple staging elements into the ever-shifting sequence of settings.
Salmon’s narrative under Fletcher’s direction grows organically, and one of the biggest wins from assembling such a musically gifted cast is that we witness the growth of musical style from something raw and unfocused to the slick polish that it reaches by the time this chapter of the bigger story ends.
Shake It Up Baby! is another brilliantly curated piece of history that Salmon has shaped into a compelling story and, if the reaction of the audience is any measure, it has legs to carry it well beyond this premiere run.
Nigel Smith
SHARE THIS POST:
Comments are closed.