A unique Perthshire link to The Beatles has become the stuff of legend down the decades.
Almost anyone from the county who was around at the time can likely still tell you where they were when the most famous band in history was making their second and final appearance at Dundee’s Caird Hall in October 1964.
The reason? That was all down to the media frenzy sparked at the time by the Fab Four being based in hotel chalets on the banks of picturesque Loch Earn for two nights.
Exactly 60 years on, the folklore is set to be rebooted at Perth Theatre in Gabriel Quigley’s new play, There’s a Place.
The play imagines four young Beatles fans from the Fair City setting up camp surreptitiously at St Fillans in the hope of meeting their idols.
Hamilton-born actress and writer Gabriel started work on There’s A Place almost three years ago and completed it last year. But it’s been deliberately kept on hold to coincide with the landmark anniversary.
Playwright ‘wanted to write a Perth story’
“I was commissioned by Perth Theatre to write a play and I thought I wanted to write a Perth story,” Gabe tells me.
“Before I got the commission I’d stayed at the Salutation Hotel in Perth and it had a sign on the wall saying The Beatles had stayed there. So I took a photo and sent it to my sisters, who are all Beatles maniacs like me, just for a laugh.
“I thought they must have played Perth and looked it up – but no.
“They all stayed there when they played Dundee in 1963, and also mentioned was the Roman Camp Hotel in Callander – where they stayed when they toured again in the spring – and Loch Earn also kept coming up.
“I was like, ‘hang on a minute, what’s this?’, and the newspaper reports from the time came up with the photos of them on the loch.
“So I imagined – what if some fans had been tipped off by someone at the hotel and they camped there (a bit like Stand By Me with girls) and sat and waited for them to arrive.”
‘What if The Beatles had been born girls?’
Gabe’s creation, which she cheekily dubs “a one-room play with Scottish weather”, features a youthful all-female cast of five.
The hideaways are all known by their nicknames – John, Paul, George and Ringo – and the story follows their coming-of-age antics over the course of a historic night at the lochside.
“I’d always had a thought – what if The Beatles had been born girls?” she continues.
“Whatever would’ve happened, it wouldn’t have been the story that we have, so the play is four girls who don’t leave the loch. They’re planning how they’re going to get across, but don’t want to get discovered camping.
“Of course, The Beatles go and do the Dundee gig and the audience follows their car and comes back for the after-party at St Fillans. All the while we’re sitting with the girls chatting and we end up learning about what life was like for them in 1964.
“I’ve always loved the photos of the fans from back then, but also wondered who those determined and rebellious girls were.”
Fab Four were ‘working class people who didn’t change their voices’
There’s A Place is directed by Perth actress Sally Reid and theatre-goers from both Perthshire and Dundee can look forward to an abundance of local references.
“The Ringo character, she’s from the travelling community, while the John character is of mixed ethnicity,” says Gabriel.
“Her father was a GI at the Cultybraggan Camp, so she’s been an abandoned baby at the hospital. Her mother was a midwife and that would happen sometimes, particularly in those days, so she’s been adopted by posh Perthshire professors and has had a very middle-class upbringing.
“There was a lot of lost talent in those days, but The Beatles symbolised inclusivity and helped push change. They were working class people who didn’t change their voices and they kept their own accents.
“They were cheeky and funny and they didn’t feel the need to kowtow in any way, and the girls really connect with that. My own mum would have been in her early 20s at that time and the play’s a tribute to her really.”
‘You don’t have to be into The Beatles to enjoy it’
Gabe says her creation’s fifth character, also a Beatles fan, who appears later in the story, sums up “that whole swathe of Perth that exists beyond the working-class side” and she hopes There’s A Place will appeal to people from all backgrounds, be they devotees of The Rolling Stones, Take That or Taylor Swift.
“The Beatles themselves don’t appear in it, and you don’t have to be into their music to enjoy it,” she explains.
“It’s virtually impossible to get any rights to Lennon and McCartney so we’ve just relied on the covers up to 1964, and the first few Beatles albums had plenty – songs like Twist And Shout and Kansas City, and the Cavern classic Some Other Guy.
“There’s no band which comes out to play, but the girls perform four-part harmonies in moments of elation or sadness because they know how to sing in that way from school, and there’s some Scots songs they’ve learned in there as well.
“Hopefully if you’ve ever been a fan of anything you’ll recognise the humour and the joy in it, but it’s a play about women as well.
“If you’re a Beatles fan you’ll also recognise certain things and go, ‘oh aye’, like they’re all eating Granny Smith apples in a row at one point.
“The girls share some similarities with each Beatle they’ve chosen, but more than anything it’s about Perth and Scotland at that time.”
There’s A Place is at Perth Theatre from October 17 until November 2.
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