From Sunny Afternoon which tells the story of The Kinks to Jersey Boys which charts the rise of The Four Seasons, jukebox musicals are very a la mode at the moment, so it is not surprising that Let It Be has thrown its hat into the theatrical ring, presenting an evening that celebrates music by The Beatles. However, Let It Be breaks the mould by dispensing with any narrative and instead consists of back-to-back Beatles numbers with the occasional costume change thrown in. Clearly wanting to create atmosphere that was more like a concert, the bar remains open throughout, the taking of pictures is encouraged, and getting up and dancing in the aisles is positively expected. If you are a fan of The Beatles, and in particular have a strong sense nostalgia for when Beatlemania took over the world, you’ll have a jolly good time watching Let It Be. Yes I enjoyed bopping along to few of the tunes, but after a while it began to wear thin; the songs easily could have been padded out with The Beatles’ backstory.

Let It Be is jam-packed with many crowd-pleasing numbers, including ‘Drive My Car’, ‘Yesterday’ and ‘Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’, to name just three of the 40 songs that make up the show. Aficionados will also be pleased that in this version of the make-believe Beatles, Paul McCartney is also left-handed (not altering the overall silhouette of the band). McCartney is played by Emanuele Angeletti, clearly cast for his physical likeness to the pop star rather then his Scouse accent which leaves a lot to be desired; for the majority of the time this Italian’s Liverpudlian accent sounded like it had taken a detour via Russia.

The Garrick’s proscenium arch has two large television screens fastened to it: these are used in a variety of ways to give the performance interactive and technological dimensions. As the audience are taking their seats they are encouraged to use to Twitter to request songs, post pictures and tweet using the pretty nifty hashtag #TweetandShout. These are then projected onto the onstage television screen and the smaller screens dotted around the venue. They are also used to show clips of archive footage of the faint-inducing hysteria The Beatles caused their fans. During many of the musical numbers there was a black and white live stream of the performance played on the screens as well. Of course, when the real life Beatles took to the stage it was in a time that predated much of the technology that we have at our fingertips today, so it many ways it was like recreating a Beatles concert where the audience had all suddenly been given smartphones.

For those that want to have good old sing song and hear some quality music drenched in nostalgia then Let It Be will tick of all these boxes. However, just don’t expect anything more. It felt like I’d stumbled across a Beatles tribute band that just so happened to be performing at the Garrick Theatre.

Let It Be is playing at the Garrick Theatre. For tickets and more information, see the Let It Be website. Photo by Paul Coltas.