See How They Run.


I booked my train tickets for Edinburgh today, so it must be happening.

I also managed to fit in listening to the first three parts of BBC Radio 2’s four-part series ‘Paul Merton’s Beatles’ around working on my show; I wonder if you can guess what band the programme was about?

More specifically, it's built around the fictional premise that - after putting aside their business differences - The Beatles briefly reformed in 1974 to release a new album (called ‘All Made Up’) and stage a reunion concert. The first two episodes consist of solo live performances from John, Paul, George and Ringo that have been edited together to sound like a single gig (with Merton supplying the excitable commentary of a journalistic witness) and the final two are built around studio recordings from the post-Fab Four that have been collated to sound like the album the group might have made.

Paul Merton is famously a big Beatles fan so I knew it was likely to be good, but even I was surprised by some of the song choices. The third episode - which was essentially side one of the fictional album - is really nicely thought out, with Merton having cleverly considered the themes of the material and how they might have been interweaved if such an album had been made, I doubt it would have been as democratically spread as Merton’s tracklist (I can’t see Ringo getting as many cuts as John and Paul), but it was a creative selection. I’ll look forward to hearing what he chose for ‘side two’ when I listen to the last episode.

When I wasn’t listening to The Beatles, I was being generally productive. As well as booking my train tickets, I ran some new material I plan to do at Thursday’s Mostly, did some video editing for a couple of slides in the show, had a look at some of the weaker points of the set and did a run of the whole thing. It felt a little messy if I’m honest, as there are a few bits I need to decide on more clearly - plus I was a little hazy about some of what you might laughingly call the script - but that’s okay for where I’m at. I can tidy things up tomorrow in time for Friday’s show, and while it will by no means be the complete article by then, it should be a good way toward it.

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