AYBeatleS?

Imagine...

Captain Peacock as the Beatles' chauffeur
Miss Brahms as a drama student who encounters the Beatles while they are being chased by Klang and the followers of his mad "Indian" cult
Mr. Goldberg as the decidedly British doorman of an Indian restaurant

Well, in a manner of speaking, the above either happened (on film) or came close to happening.

In a scene deleted from the final version of A Hard Day's Night, Frank Thornton (Peacock) played the part of the Fabs' chauffeur as the boys suffer the indignity of being cursed at by another driver while stuck in traffic. This scene was filmed on April 14, 1964.

On April 22-23, 1965, a young Wendy Richard (Miss Brahms) worked on a scene deleted from Help! in which she played Lady Macbeth, a student at the Sam Ahab School of Transcendental Elocution. Fortunately, production stills from this scene survive, and here we can see Wendy with Sam Ahab (played by British comedian Frankie Howerd) and some guy named Paul McCartney.

More pictures from Wendy Richard's deleted "Help!" scene:

"Attention, class!"

"My name's Paul; what's yours?"

"Do you want to know a secret?"

"We're just good friends."

"Haven't I seen you on the telly?"

Finally, in a scene (filmed May 9, 1965) that did make the final cut, Alfie Bass (Mr. Goldberg) has a small part as a doorman at an Indian restaurant. As Ringo and company come across this restaurant and see the Indian-clad doorman, they naturally assume he might be able to advise Ringo on how to get rid of the "sacrificial ring" stuck on his finger. To their amazement, they discover he cannot help them at all (Ringo: "He's from the west!" Doorman: "No, east--Stepney.") Here we see a perplexed Ringo and Alfie Bass.

(Much of the above information came from Mark Lewisohn's superb book, The Complete Beatles Chronicle.)

If that wasn't enough, this document (originally at Ganymede's site) has some rather fanciful (and hilarious) AYBS?-Beatles connections.

(This page featured at BeatleLinks.net - Beatles Internet Resource Guide.)

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