When this play was first performed at the fringe, back in 1993, they were refused permission to use the music of the Beatles, and that was the best decision for both parties. Despite some moments of harrowing drama, and some funny lines, it never recovers from a stunningly tasteless scene transition near the beginning. A woman at an airport announces that she has a gun, and she’s going to kill someone, then she starts to dance to an upbeat Beatles song while images from the cover of the Revolver album are projected on to the blinds that dominate the set. Knowing that John Lennon was shot dead in 1980 by a disillusioned fan makes it more than a little queasy.

It probably doesn’t help that the three female characters, all played by a plucky but fragile Emily Woof, are too connected to exist in their own worlds and not connected enough to make thematic sense.

The first character we meet is a polite, meek, feminist teacher, who went off the rails when her husband left her. She meets a television producer at a party and falls into a job as a television researcher, on a documentary about her mother’s love of the Beatles, which she finds exciting but frightening. She’s the one holding the gun at the start, and it could be a fun moment of empowerment as she contemplates taking revenge after the job goes sour, if it wasn’t for the Beatles baggage.

The second character is her mother aged fourteen, moving to London in 1966 to be closer to John Lennon. She’s convinced she will meet and marry him. She writes him long, surreal, graphic fan letters, and hopes he won’t mind her liking a boy called Billy who introduces her to the SCUM manifesto written by Valerie Solanas. Very quickly something horrific happens to her that has nothing to do with John Lennon, and isn’t helped in any way by her reading a book about cutting up men.

The third character is Valerie Solanas, convinced Andy Warhol will make her one of his superstars, then humiliated when he loses her manuscript and insults her. She isn’t a fan, but the researcher wants to include her in her mother’s documentary as her mother’s opposite, the dark fan; the bad fan. Which is an odd choice considering the Beatles had some of the worst anti-fans, not just Mark Chapman, who shot Lennon because he felt the gap between his public image and private self was too great, but also Charles Manson, who was convinced that the Beatles were using their songs to send him instructions to start a race war by murdering suburbanites.

All three women are mistreated by men. All three women find a way to cope. They don’t need to be forced together by conjecture about fans, or the music of the Beatles. It’s a distraction.

‘Revolver‘ is at Pleasance Courtyard – Beneath until Mon 25 Aug 2025 at 14:20