Favourite Jacket Stolen

by Mal and Neil

Thursday was another busy, bright day--slightly spoiled for George because some fan had broken into the bus overnight and pinched his favourite old denim jacket.

And on Friday we headed back towards London. The weekend break was welcome but on Tuesday it was back to work with a very heavy filming schedule out at West Malling R.A.F. base. So heavy that, instead of driving 50 miles to and from the location each day, we decided to put up close to Maidstone in a hotel until the end of the week.

At West Malling all the main scenes were filmed. Before going out there we'd done the special Strip Club sequence with Jan Carson and The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah band in Paul Raymond's Revuebar, Soho. During the rest of the week we did the Magicians' Laboratory sequence, Aunt Jessie's Nightmare, a Recruiting Office scene with Victor Spinetti cast as a Sergeant, the Marathan Race (with four midget wrestlers, five clergymen, a Rugby team, a dozen tiny children playing Tug O' War and a bunch of racing motor cyclists), the bit where George sings "Blue Jay Way" sitting cross-legged on a pavement in thick fog, the lengthy and quite spectacular outdoor scene for the song "I Am The Walrus" and the huge Finale involving a couple of hundred "extras"--mostly formation dancers.

By supper time the following Sunday night everything was finished at West Malling. Well, everything except a few linking bits which we did with the bus later on PLUS Paul's "Fool On The Hill" song sequence (which was not shot until the first week of November) and a bit of outdoor filming with Ringo and Auntie Jessie for the very beginning of the show (shot at the end of October).

Much earlier on we said that The Beatles play other roles in the show. Well, John is the man who sells the tour tickets (with large false moustache!) and he is also a somewhat greasy waiter in "Auntie Jessie's Nightmare". Paul plays "Major McCartney" in the Recruiting Office bit and all four Beatles are joined by Mal to play The Five Mysterious Magicians who pop up at odd intervals to make all the magic in the show!

Perhaps we've been teasing you a bit by telling you little scraps of information about different scenes without giving you the complete story of the show. Well, that's the idea! You'll have to wait until you see the whole programme on telly before you find out the whole story!