A voice over narration I recorded for a DVD documentary about the Beatles is now available to buy.

I recorded the voiceover late last summer and it’s been in production ever since. “The Beatles are Coming” is a documentary that chronicles the Beatlemania Years. It uses archive TV interviews and newsreel footage from the early 60’s to tell the story, as it says, “from the Cavern to Candlestick Park”.  It’s the years when the Fab Four were still playing live to hordes of screaming fans.  Much of the footage has rarely been seen before.

The DVD accompanies a book that’s packed with hundreds of photos of the Beatles. It certainly helps to take you into the eye of the Beatlemania Storm.  Nostalgia if you were there and an insight to history if you were not.

As well as providing the voiceover I also worked on restoring most of the archive audio – basically cleaning it up and equalising the levels across all the clips. It was an enjoyable job.

I was too young to have experienced the Beatles and so I liked the way the clips revealed how likeable the Beatles were in those Mop Top days. There’s an engaging sense of wide eyed surprise among the band members as they describe the madness their performances have unleashed.

They also have to deal with some of the most inane and patronising TV interviewers going – I can see why a sense of humour was needed to deal with some of them.    For me working on the clips helped to explain to some extent why the whole Beatlemania phenomenon exploded as it did.

The Beatles are Coming is currently available exclusively in WH Smiths for just under a tenner!

The book and DVD have been produced by Frances Hill at Atlantic Publishing