BEATLES - Drop-In

Musical

Narrenteatern, Stockholm/Drop In, Swedish TV

The full show of "Drop In". Swedish television show 1963

Details on the show from "The Beatles in sweden"
http://home.swipnet.se/~w-29168/Beattour1963.htm

This day is one of the absolute most interesting of the days in Sweden. The Beatles was about to tape their first show for the Swedish Television.
After a sleepy morning the boys took off for the TV-studio. The recording of the TV program "Drop In" was supposed to take place in front of a live audience at the Arena Theater at Gröna Lund. They rehearsed during the day and the show was taped at 19.00.
By the time The Beatles rehearsed for the show Mal Evans sat up their equipment. The equipment was worth about £ 1500.

After a couple of hours of rehearsal they left for lunch. John, Paul, George, Ringo, Mal, Neil Aspinall, Klas Burling (the producer), Kersti Adams-Ray (the confrecier) and some photographers left the studio. They went over the road (Djurgårdsvägen) and over to Skansen and further to a restaurant at Solliden, where they eat a well earned lunch.
The people at the restaurant looked curious at The Beatles. Not because the were The Beatles but for the long hair.!
The rumour says that John and Paul played on an old piano that stood in the restaurant by this time.
More things happened!

A Swedish photographer called Bo Trenter got the opportunity to take some really great shoots of The Beatles. A couple of them pictures made their way to some of The Beatles Ep's.
A picture of The Beatles holding up an enormous cake is on a Swedish release from December 1963.
Another picture is taken at one of the cannons outside the restaurant. This made it's way to the Swedish version of the EP "All My Loving" from January 1964.

Back to the Arena Theater for the last preparations for tonight's big event.
During the afternoon they got a massage by phone from England that their hit "She Loves You" that had began to drop on the charts was climbing again to reach no. 1 again (very unusual).
In a pause the producer, Klas Burling (an old friend of The Beatles who actually introduced them for Michael Cox in Bournemouth in August 1963 were he invited them for a tour in Sweden) was asked by The Beatles to listen to a acoustic version of one of the new songs John and Paul had written. It was "I Want To Hold Your Hand".
Klas Has told that he immediately knew that it's was going to be a new no. 1.
Mal and Neil went out to buy some food. Sausage and pommes frites were bought. One of them dropped a part of the meal on the way back, but that didn't seemed to disturb The Beatles, on the contrary, they got a good laugh.

In good time before the main event, Paul said that he wanted go in to the city to do some shopping. Klas Burling took his Fiat and drew Paul and Ringo to NK, the biggest and "finest" store in Stockholm. Paul bought some perfume to Jane Asher. Again people looked curiously on the two strange guys.

Outside the Arena Theater, three hours before the show to take off, people began to line up.

Inside the Arena the rehearsals continued. It wasn't that The Beatles and the other artists had to rehears that much. The rehearsals was so called clothes rehearsals and how camera angles was going to be mixed. How the artists were going to be introduced and so on.

Now the time had come. The show started. One artist after another went up on the stage and made their act. When the time had come for the main event to enter the scene Klas Burling, sitting on the stage edge, introduced The Beatles.
"And to round up tonight's show there will be a group that we've already mentioned earlier this evening."
Behind Klas one or some of boys showed up behind the curtains and made the girls in the audience scream. Others in the audience tried to make them shout up. The camera, was still focused on Klas.
"The group, four boys from England - Liverpool actually, have been playing together just for fun for about three years. Just to get money to food for the day. They are still playing..."
The boy's starts to enter the scene and a shock goes through the audience.
"You can hear them right behind me. But they still likes to play even though' they can play and earn money at the same time."
He continues to tell the audience the short story about The Beatles hits and how the group is set up.
The camera takes a tour around the audience who is trying to get a better sight over the scene.
At last!!! The TV audience finally was able to see The Beatles.
Klas again: " And the song they now are going to play is 'She Loves You' ".


The Beatles started off immediately. 'She Loves You' was one of the two songs that they were supposed to play. 'Twist and Shout' was the other.
The audience was so close to The Beatles that legs on the ones in front of The Beatles touched the microphones. When the last of the two songs were finished the sound engineers had began to switch down the sound to complete the show with the signature track.
Paul, George, Lill-Babs (our Swedish pride - Still going strong and looking better than ever) and John. BTW, what's the matter with John's eyes?


But the audience, which was nearly in a trance wanted more so Klas rushed to the scene and said :
" Paul, George, John, Ringo, one more number, please"
The Beatles wasn't hard to persuade. Paul said:
"One, Two, Three, Foooour" and 'I Saw Her Standing There' came out from the loudspeakers. The Audience was thrilled and screamed and clapped their hands.
After this extra number the confrecier Kersti Adams-Ray was convicted the show was over and tried to get the signature track to start. But behind her back Klas tried to persuade The Beatles to play yet another song.

And again there were no problem to get an extra song. The Beatles kicked off immediately with 'Long Tall Sally'. That was the song that was about to round up this fantastic show.

Now the confrecier Kersti Adams-Ray could do her job. She said:
"Thank you all. Now you're going to help us out with our signature and The Beatles will also help us with our "Drop-In" -signature"
Ringo gave his heart playing the "Drop-In" -signature along with John, Paul, George, the audience and the Swedish group "The Telstars".
After the show the TV-producer, Lasse Sarri, said to John:
"I hope that you didn't mind doing the extra numbers"
John responded:
"No, not at all. I always talk like this"

After the show The Beatles left the Arena Theater in a green police car with screaming Swedish girls behind.

The program was broadcasted for the first time in Swedish television November the 3rd 1963. It have been showed several times on TV after that. The last time it was showed was late 1996. Now the Apple company got the rights for the show.