"4 Lads from Liverpool" is anything but fab

By Wendy Rosenfield, For The Inquirer

Posted: September 11, 2012

There are many, many Beatles revues, and the gentlemen of 4 Lads from Liverpool, making its East Coast debut at Ambler's Act II Playhouse, have appeared in most of them. So rest assured, this quartet has enough cumulative experience to simulate a Beatlesque sound. But that's where the similarities end.

First, these are no lads: Douglas Cox (Ringo), Robert Graham (John), Paul Ramone (Paul), and the show's mastermind, Jimmy Pou (George) are closer in age to the boys during a present-day Beatles reunion, if, of course, John and George were still around and on jamming terms with Paul and Ringo. Second, the Beatles were perfectionists, but you'll find little of that perfectionism here. Sgt. Pepper-era mustaches slide off faces; voices strain at the higher registers; Liverpudlian accents make a cursory appearance, then disappear; and the promised "amazing multimedia experience" consists of several unrelated clips of 1960s TV shows and advertisements, plus, for good measure, some hippies, crying girls, and Ed Sullivan, projected on a screen behind the performers.

4 Lads' producer claims that "a great deal of time was spent researching the rich history of the Beatles," but don't arrive expecting to learn much. Graham introduces "Eight Days a Week" as "a little number Paul and I wrote on the plane." The plane to where? When? Similarly, he prefaces "In My Life" with the context-free factoid that "it was voted the world's favorite song." A quick googling reveals that it was voted not "the world's favorite song" by the world, but rather "the Greatest Pop Song of the 20th Century" by a panel of songwriters (including McCartney) in a 2000 issue of Britain's Mojo Magazine. You're welcome.

Full disclosure here: I am a Beatles fan, the kind of fan who will still pay to see the real Paul McCartney on tour. Ringo, too. I even stood up with the rest of the audience and sang along to "Twist and Shout" on the Lads' command, and enjoyed their "Blackbird"/"Here Comes the Sun" acoustic mini-set. But it's galling that with all the truly compelling and original choices onstage this month, this lazy, lukewarm retread passes itself off as theater.

Still, if a night out seeing a mediocre Beatles cover band in an alcohol-free environment is all the night out you require, enjoy.