Review of Stuart Sutcliffe: The Lost Beatle (Music Documentary)

Introduction

Stuart Sutcliffe had met John Lennon at art college in Liverpool in 1959. While his first love was art, Lennon persuaded him to buy a bass guitar and join him, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Pete Best in his new band. Fame beckoned with the group playing in the clubs of Hamburg`s Reeperbahn, but Stuart left the band to return to the world of art with his new girlfriend Astrid Kirchherr. Within a few short years, Stuart was dead, killed by a massive cerebral haemorrhage.

This hour-long documentary has been licenced directly from its makers rather than from BBC Worldwide. Although there are no strand identifications on the programme, it looks like an episode of Arena or the sort of thing they run on BBC4. Directed by Steve Cole, the programme is an Iambic independent production for the BBC. Interviewees include Sutcliffe`s sister Pauline, girlfriend Astrid Kirchherr, the early manager of the Beatles Allan Williams, Sutcliffe`s former flatmate Rod Murray and art historian and writer Donald Kuspit.

The programme is the usual kind of thing one expects from the BBC these days - sixty minutes of mildly enlightening insight presented with flashy MTV-style visuals. The package seems a little light for the price, as there is only a poorly-presented gallery of Stuart Sutcliffe`s artwork offered as a bonus feature.

Video

Presented in its original 16:9, the programme is typical of recent BBC documentary strands. Flashy visuals involving home movie footage and much rostrum camerawork support a worthy set of talking-head interviews.

Audio

Plain vanilla Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo. Nothing to write home about. Paul Morley narrates.

Features

Oh dear. Just the aforementioned gallery of paintings presented about as badly as it is possible to. There are no subtitles for the hard of hearing.

Conclusion

A real dyed-in-the-wool Beatles fan might get a lot out of this sixty-minute documentary, but really one would be better served by this as an extra on an Special Edition of the 1994 movie Backbeat. I`m not sure it`s genuinely worth stumping up a premium price for what is basically an arts programme off the Beeb.