16 May 1963
Television performance (live):
Pops And Lenny
Television Theatre, Shepherd's Bush Green, London
(rehearsal: 1.30 pm; broadcast: BBC, 5.00 - 5.30 pm)
From Me To You
Please Please Me (truncated to 1:05)
After You've Gone (with host Terry Hall, guests Patsy Ann Noble, the Raindrops, and the Bert Hayes Octet)
"Going for a song
ONE Liverpool woman is in for a windfall thanks to the discovery of some rare 60s photos.
They capture an early appearance of The Beatles on a 1963 telly show called Pops and Lenny.
The Beatles sang From Me To You, a short version of Please Please Me and they also joined the star - Lenny the Lion and his ventriloquist boss Terry Hall for a song called After You've Gone.
The woman from North Liverpool was only 13 at the time when she snapped the Fab Four as she watched them on the TV. Now the photographs are expected to fetch hundreds of pounds at auction.
The owner, who wishes to remain anonymous, has kept them safe ever since but has now put the originals - sadly there are no negatives - up for auction at this year's Beatles sale in Lipa as part of the Beatles Convention week.
Stephen Bailey, manager of the Beatle Shop, who coordinates the massive memorabilia sale on August 23 says they are quite a find. "There's a lot of collectors who would love to have these snaps. I expect all eight will have a collective starting price of £600. We always check with Beatle valuers and archive experts such as author Keith Badman who did a trawl of all Beatle footage for Apple in 1992 and this show has never surfaced. The BBC may have a Lenny the Lion tape from 1963 but it will not have The Beatles on it."
The insider contacted the vast BBC Archive department in London who said they did have one listing of an edition of Pops and Lenny but no details of just who was actually on their only edition of the long-running series.
Adds Stephen from The Beatle Shop: "It certainly won't have The Beatles on it. The BBC rarely kept tapes in the early 60s. If they did have the tape with The Beatles - it would be priceless. But I am confident these snaps are the only record - a piece of history.""
Source: Liverpool Echo, 3 July 2003
"The Pops and Lenny show was the Beatles' second national TV appearance, where they sang Please Please Me alongside a ventriloquist puppet called Lenny the Lion. A friend of mine had written to get tickets and we were lucky. I was 14 and we both went in our school uniforms.
When the performance finished we walked down the side of the theatre, and found the door open. So we went in - and straight afterwards security locked the door. The Beatles were waiting to make their getaway, but couldn't get out until the van came round. A lot of girls were banging on the doors, but we were inside - and for an hour so were the Beatles.
They were so friendly and nice, and once they knew we weren't hysterical they were happy to have us. I don't think Beatlemania took off until a year later. In some ways, it was a little bit of history lost for ever. They were very ordinary guys, very friendly. Cynthia Lennon was there, standing in the background with a cape on. John kept saying to her "Did you get that?" Nobody realised he was married - he was pretending she was a reporter. You can imagine what it was like the next day in school. My friends were incredibly jealous.
Bronwen Walsh"
Source: Sunday Times, 7 September 2009
The Stage and Television Today, 16 May 1963
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