Imagine: The Beatles in “LOVE”
60 minute documentary for BBC1’s Imagine strand – 2006

View this clip on the DCD Media Showreel

‘…an absolute Joy’ The Guardian 18/12/2006

2007 Worldfest Houston - Platinum Remi Award
2007 US International Film and Video Festival - Silver Award

When The Beatles, whose music has cast its spell over generation after generation, came together with Cirque du Soleil, the company that single-handedly reinvented the idea of the circus, few could have predicted the extraordinary adventure ahead. The aim: to attempt a visual interpretation of the magical, musical landscape created by the most influential band of all time. The resultant show – Love – premiered at the Mirage Hotel in Las Vegas to breathless reviews. Love, the album, was released as a stereo CD and represented the closest thing to a new Beatles album without the remaining members returning to the studio. Brave, certainly, foolhardy, maybe, but it works, sourcing material from over 130 Beatles recordings to create an astonishing 90 minute soundscape to accompany the characteristically ambitious Cirque du Soleil visuals. This unprecedented approach to creating a score for a live show has stunned critics and audiences alike.

Presenter Alan Yentob follows the process by which the stage show and album were created side-by-side. He examines the evolution of the stage show from earliest rehearsals to finished performance, while charting the progress of the songs from the original versions, back to Sixties master tapes and finally to the completed reworked soundscape. The entire, long-protected Beatles catalogue and unreleased archive material was made available. This documentary has exclusive access to George Martin, along with his son/co-producer Giles Martin, as they demonstrate the process by which the soundtrack was created. Sir Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, along with Yoko Ono and Olivia Harrison helped shape the production throughout – interviews with each are featured. Martin and son even had access to unreleased archive material – without the two remaining Fab Four going back to the studio themselves, this is as close as can be to brand new Beatles production.