Which of the Beatles would you most like to have been? Not either of the dead ones, presumably. Nor the one continually derided for his alleged lack of talent. Definitely not the embarrassing, gurning, two-thumbs-up uncool one…
Anyway, it’s a trick question. The correct answer, at least it is for me after watching The Beatles: Made on Merseyside (BBC4, Friday), is Pete Best — the drummer who got ousted just before the band got big because he was too good-looking, too quiet and, some say, because Brian Epstein couldn’t handle his mum’s pushiness.
Best, I’d always imagined, was the unluckiest man in history. So when he was featured on the documentary talking fondly about the Hamburg years and about how John Lennon was always his hero, I kept waiting for the bit where his throat cracked, his eyes misted up and he looked away from the camera, temporarily unable to continue.
Not a bit of it.
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