Town catches Beatles fever as event celebrating Fab Four comes to Shrewsbury - in pictures
Beatlemania descended on the county for the weekend with a host of events celebrating the Fab Four.
Shrewsbury's Beatles Weekend opened up on Friday night with a screening of the movie Backbeat at Theatre Severn, and continued throughout the weekend with music, expert talks, and showings of the band's own celebrated movies.
The festival gave many people a chance to see the Fab Four's classic films 'A Hard Day's Night' and 'Eight Days a Week' on the big screen for the first time ever.
Phil Gillam, one of the weekend's organisers, said it had been wonderful to see the films in the way they were originally intended.
He said: "It was an absolute joy, we so enjoyed it.
"It has been years since there has been an opportunity to see it on the big screen. As a kid we used to watch it on the TV, they would show A Hard Day's Night, and Help! at Christmas time so we grew up with it. In fact I'm not sure I have ever seen it on the big screen before so that was an absolute joy."
Saturday afternoon had seen Theatre Severn host a meet-the-author session with David Bedford, who collaborated with Hunter Davies on the Beatles Book.
Mr Gillam, who is also mayor of Shrewsbury, said Mr Bedford had provided some great insight about the Beatles' early years.
He said: "He has done so much research into the early years, he had some fascinating details and stories.
"One of the almost mythical things about the Beatles is that people say Ringo was not much of a drummer, because they compare him to the likes of Keith Moon, who was very fancy. But the thing is David Bedford has interviewed something like 22 different drummers, who at various points in their career played with the Beatles, to analyse his drumming, and he said he was a fantastic drummer who was misunderstood.
"There's an urban myth that John Lennon was asked if Ringo was the best drummer in the world and replied "he's not even the best drummer in the beatles", well Mr Bedford explained that John never said that, that was actually a Jasper Carrot joke!".
