John Lennon and Paul McCartney Reunited
“I’m 35 years old and I still feel like I’ve done something wrong. “
John about his childhood
“I felt like I was losing my best mate . . . When we broke up it was hell.”
Paul
The story of this play is the stuff of legend. Mark Stanfield wrote the screenplay for the 2000 film Two of Us about a meeting between John Lennon and Paul McCartney in New York in 1976. Richard Short and Barry Sloane tracked down Mark Stanfield and persuaded him to collaborate on this stage production. The meeting between John Lennon and Paul McCartney did take place but the actual playscript is imagined. However, Paul McCartney saw the 2000 film and said he liked it.
The Beatles had been falling out in the preceding years but in April 1970 Paul had announced that they would not be working together. In 1976, Paul’s band Wings was topping the charts in both the UK and America. Paul was established with his wife Linda and three daughters; John was living in New York with Yoko Ono and they have a six month old baby Sean.
John is in the stage representation of his minimalist white apartment with its white grand piano and white leather sofa. Film can do minimalism so much better than the confines of a theatre stage but we are in the room where it happens. When Paul arrives, a phone call from the concierge tells John he is there and we go through John’s security questions to make sure it really is Paul. This is our first indication of that wonderful Liverpudlian humour from John.
Paul is let in and John tells him he is asking to be mugged in his British winter coat and suit. We are instantly reminded that this is Yoko’s flat and Paul is asked to remove his shoes and he chooses to be barefoot like John. There are many Yoko moments although we never see her: when John rings the bell for meditation, when John recalls his therapy for the Primal Scream coinciding with a bemused visitor hearing him screaming, when he talks about his macrobiotic diet.
John calls her the Crazy Dragon and I am so pleased that I spent some time today looking at videos of Paul talking about Yoko, when she and John were inseparable, and she sat in on recording sessions, knitting, which we have on tape. Paul explains that John was so in love that he didn’t want to spend any time away from her. Maybe we have misjudged Yoko in blaming her for the split and as Paul says now, John was ready to move on to discover a new way of life.
This is such a professional production. Of course as a joint author, Barry Sloane who impressed us as Yosser Hughes recently in Boys From the Blackstuff is taking his dream part and is very convincing as John. John’s life is described as his being a house husband to Sean in this moment when Yoko and Sean are in California buying a cow but Paul gets to talk to Sean on the phone, “This is your uncle Paul,” says John. Paul sings a version of Old McCartney had a farm to baby Sean. There is some other music from Peter Frampton.
The play is of course tinged with sadness as we hear about John’s reluctance to go outside and we know the consequences when he does in December 1980. We wonder if John is suffering from depression. A high point of the play is when the American tv programme Saturday Night Live offers a cheque of, a laughable amount of money, $3000 for the Beatles to get back together and John suggests to Paul, for a laugh they should go straight to the New York studio together.
Jay Johnson looks close enough to Paul in that period to convince us how good a friend he was to John, who still feels deeply about being rejected by his father. It is good also considering how Julian, born in 1963, John’s son from his first marriage, did not have a great experience of fatherhood, that John was able to be a better father to Sean. The play is supporting Mental Health awareness.
I think the whole company has done very well bringing this play to life at Watford Palace and later Manchester HOME. It deserves to be more widely seen. TheatreVibe for writing, directing, acting, set and atmosphere has no hesitation in giving it five fully nostalgic stars from the site that doesn’t do stars.
Production Notes
Two of Us
Written by Mark Stanfield, Richard Short and Barry Sloane
Directed by Scot Williams
Cast
Starring:
Barry Sloane
Jay Johnson
Creatives
Director: Scot Williams
Designer: Amy Jane Cook
Lighting Designer: Katy Morison
Sound Designer: Adrienne Quartly
Movement Director: Ross Owen
Video/Projection Designer: DMLK Video
Information
Running Time: Two hours including an interval
Booking to 21st September 2024
Then to HOME Manchester
until 28th September 2024
Theatre:
Watford Palace Theatre
20 Clarendon Road
Watford
WD17 1JZ
Box Office enquiries:
01923 225671
Tube/Rail : Watford Junction
Telephone: 01923 225671
Website: watfordpalacetheatre.co.uk
Reviewed by Lizzie Loveridge at the Watford Palace Theatre
on 17th September 2024