Learn about The Songs The Beatles Gave Away with the expert guidance of 'Whispering' Bob Harris and Colin Hall at Portsmouth Guildhall

The theatre show is inspired by the BBC Radio 2 documentary hosted by Bob and Colin's book of the same name.

They’ll be looking into the stories behind these songs, ​including Cilla Black's top 10 hit Step Inside Love and Peter and Gordon's transatlantic chart-topper A World Without Love – as well as many more hidden gems.

“It began as the radio documentary for Radio 2 because Colin and I had put together a lovely programme called The Day John Met Paul to mark the 50th anniversary of the two of them meeting at a church fete in July 1957,” Harris explains. “The show won a Sony so Radio 2 were very keen for us to do a follow-up and Colin said there were about 30 songs that they had a hand in writing but never released as a group – and they're amazing songs.

“We did the documentary, we spoke to Paul, George Martin, Cilla Black, Mary Hopkin, Billy J Kramer – all of the people who'd benefitted from the songs, and that was the follow-up documentary.”

Using the interviews from the 2009 broadcast as a starting point, Hall began to write a book of the same name. The 528-page tome was eventually released in 2022.

“It took him years because he delved right deep down into all the minutiae of the songs’” says Bob. “Having completed it, I said to Colin, we should take this on the road, which is what we're doing.”

With so much material, Bob admits that condensing it all down into a stage show is proving tough.

“We're beginning to get more and more like Bruce Springsteen,” he laughs, referring to the American rockstar’s epic sets. “We did one show before Christmas that was three-and-a-half hours long, because there is so much. Obvious you judge it with the audience – I actually asked them, I told them we were due to have stopped five minutes ago, do you want us to stop? And they said no!”

Given the ongoing appeal of The Beatles and the vast existing library of books on the Liverpudlian band, how hard was it to find a new angle on the group?

“When we got in touch with Paul with this idea, he said, oh this is great! Normally people want to know what it was like in '63, and how we wrote Yesterday and all of this. Colin describes the day we went to MPL, Paul's office in Soho, and Paul had done all of the research as well. He had a list of songs which exactly matched ours, and he told us it was a joy to talk about something that had come from a different angle – something unexpected.”

The Beatles remain the act Bob has played most throughout his decades on the radio. And even now, their influence remains as strong as ever. Witness the attention and hype that surrounded the release of their “new” single Now And Then late last year, which went straight to number one.

“I think they always will be influential,” says Bob. “They were such a massive, indelible part of not just the music but the culture. Even to this day, I do The Country Show on Radio 2 and a lot of the younger country stars talk about their dads or their grandads now, being there on the day The Beatles played The Ed Sullivan Show in 1964,” it was the band’s first appearance on American TV, and ushered in the era of Beatlemania stateside. “The whole of the country stood still. For a lot of young people and musicians, it was life-changing. Their legacy is still as strong as ever.”

This show draws on a wealth of interviews and other recordings. Key among them is Bob’s interview with Sir George Martin, The Beatles’ famed producer. The two had become friends while being co-patrons of an annual event for Cancer Research UK at Abbey Road called Sound and Vision.

“I really respected and admired him as a person, so when it came to us chatting, he gave us so much insight into The Beatles – there's a quite lovely piece I play at the beginning of the evening from it about their lasting impact, and it's very moving.”

One of the other things you will hear in the show is what Harris describes “one of the great demos of all time” – McCartney and Cilla Black playing Step Inside Love for the first time.

"When we made the documentary I found this little demo Paul and Cilla had made in a little studio in Bond Street, with Paul on acoustic guitar and Cilla singing it from the lyrics he'd written down – it was absolutely the first moment of capturing this song, and we play that on stage. It's absolutely beautiful.”

Some of the songs The Beatles gave away are rather more obscure – and Bob enjoys telling the stories these songs and the associated figures just as much.

“There was a song called Catcall which Paul wrote for (jazz bandleader) Chris Barber, and it's such a lovely piece of music. But Chris was also a real barrier-breaker in his day – (skiffle star) Lonnie Donegan was part of his band. Alexis Korner was also part of his band, and he was the catalyst behind the formation of the Rolling Stones, Robert Plant was mentored by him, and he was a huge guiding figure for me in my early days in the music industry too.

“It gives me the opportunity to talk about Alexis and keep his name alive as well.”

The Songs The Beatles Gave Away is in The Lens Studio at Portsmouth Guildhall on Sunday, February 4 at 8pm. Go to bobharris.org.

Colin Hall’s book of the same name is available from all good retailers.

Bob

Harris also has a new podcast, A Game of No Halves about a fictitious football team he created 40 years ago. New episodes are released every Wednesday,