The Regal is proud to lead on a weekend festival 'Beatles Fest Tenbury: Before Abbey Road there was Teme Street...' Celebrating 60 years since the Beatles played in Tenbury. This event is part of the weekends celebrations.

Roger McGough, the ‘Living proof of himself,’ and President of the Poetry Society not only helped kickstart the musical careers of Bob Dylan and Jimi Hendrix, but inspired hundreds, if not thousands of young poets (well, quite a few), on their poetic journeys.

85 years old and at that awkward age now between birth and death, he puts on a brave face and takes to the stage for Tenbury’s Beatles Weekend with a show featuring new poems as well as old favourites.

The show takes audiences on a journey back to key moments of his life. McGough reflects on his Liverpool childhood before World War II, with memories and poems including The Overall Winner and Learning to Read and a throw-back to the 60’s and poems of the Mersey Beat. The evening will include the poem To Macca’s Trousers, celebrating the Beatles and the blue mohair pants that were given to him by Mike McGear, his band member, and the brother of Paul McCartney when they were both members of the hit Liverpool group The Scaffold. New verses have been added for Lily the Pink which takes a playful update on the Scaffold’s 1968 classic.

As well as laughs, there will be poems about growing old; A Joy to be Old, A Cure for Ageing and Let me Die an Old Man’s Death, which aptly round up the new show.

DISOUNT on every 2nd Ticket!
Tickets are £17.50 but if you buy a pair of tickets it is discounted to £25!
Discount applied at checkout.

The Beatles came to Tenbury Wells on 15 April 1963, playing at Bridge Hotel in the early revs of their rise to being the greatest entertainment phenomenon ever.

Six months after stopping in Tenbury the Beatles were topping the London Palladium; ten months after Tenbury they were headlining Carnegie Hall, and their triumphs extended without pause right through the Sixties. They were huge stars then, and somehow, 60 years on, they’re huge stars still.

Please join the crowds at our Regal Cinema to see Beatles expert Mark Lewisohn guide us through that history and launch our diamond anniversary festival of the Beatles in Tenbury Wells.

Mark Lewisohn – the writer – is the Beatles world authority. His many successful books include Recording Sessions (1988, recently republished) and Tune In (2013), which won the inaugural Penderyn Prize and is the first in a comprehensive three-volume history, The Beatles: All These Years. Mark is presently at work on volume two.

Reviews of Mark Lewisohn’s book Tune In:

‘A triumph. Not only an enthralling account of the Beatles’ origins, far superior to anything that has gone before, but also an essential piece of social history.’ – The Times

‘Lewisohn’s work stands as a monumental triumph, a challenge to the discipline of biography itself. If only all important subjects had their Lewisohn.’ – Washington Post

Mark Lewisohn – the speaker – has talked Beatles at literary festivals in Edinburgh, Oxford, Bath, Cheltenham and more, and at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, Lincoln Center in New York and the Smithsonian in Washington DC. He has twice presented his own theatre show, Hornsey Road in 2019 and Beatles/Evolver:62 last October.

Review of Mark Lewisohn’s 2022 stage show Evolver:62:

‘Lewisohn is an engaging presenter who finds clever ways to illustrate the story. One of the things I like about him is that although he’s gone to enormous lengths to acquire all this information, he never seems proprietorial about it. He likes sharing his treasure, using it to enrich everyone else’s enjoyment of a story that will never be repeated.’ – Richard Williams, thebluemoment.com

DISOUNT on every 2nd Ticket!
Tickets are £10 but if you buy a pair of tickets it is discounted to £15!
Discount applied at checkout.

The Festival will start at the original site of the Riverside Dancing Club at the Bridge Inn.

The Tenbury Town Band will walk to the Regal where the Festival will be formally opened by:

Cllr Eric Hudson, Tenbury Town Mayor and Jane Allen, Chair, Tenbury Regal Trust

The Cool Moves Dance class will be twisting and jiving outside the Regal to get the weekend party mood started.come.

Our Yellow Submarine

Children's Drop In at Tenbury Wells Library (£3 per person, cash and contactless accepted on the day)

Drop in anytime to be a part of this fantastic collaborative BEATLES FEST TENBURY art project. All ages very welcome (including big kids!). The finish piece will be displayed in the window of the Regal throughout the celebratory weekend - let's get creative!

This event is organised by a third party and is being promoted by The Regal as part of Beatles Fest Tenbury. The Regal takes no responsibility for the ticketing and running of this event.