Astoria Cinema, Seven Sisters Rd.
Finsbury Park, London
This stage production, "The Beatles Christmas Show", conceived and presented by Brian Epstein, and typical of the man, encompassed comedy, pantomime and music. It settled in at the Astoria for a 16 night run, two "houses" each except for December 24th and 31st, when there was only one. (There were no shows at all on December 25th and December 29th as well as January 5th, and the season ended on Saturday, January 11, 1964.) One hundred thousand tickets for the 30 shows went on sale on October 21st. By November 16th, they were all sold.
The Beatles music repertoire for the season comprised "Roll Over Beethoven", "All My Loving", "This Boy", "I Wanna Be Your Man", "She Loves You", "Till There Was You", "I Want To Hold Your Hand", "Money (That's What I Want)" and "Twist And Shout". They also participated in a number of sketches and routines which proved extremely popular with the audiences.
The Beatles and other northern-based members of the large cast, most of whom were managed by Brian Epstein's NEMS Enterprises, flew home to Liverpool late on December 24th to spend Christmas with their families, returning to London during Boxing Day morning.
