Michael Lindsay-Hogg is asked to direct the Beatles’ live TV show project

In September 1968, director Michael Lindsay-Hogg directed promotional films for The Beatles’ songs “Revolution” and “Hey Jude.” These filmed performances marked the first time Paul McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr had appeared before a live audience since ending their tours in August 1966.

Inspired by this experience, Paul McCartney reconsidered the idea of live performances and proposed creating a television special that would capture The Beatles rehearsing for their return to live shows. Plans for the Beatles’ live TV project began to develop in September 1968, and by early November, it was officially announced that the band would perform on three consecutive nights, filming a live television special between December 14 and December 23, 1968.

In November 1968, Michael Lindsay-Hogg was formally commissioned to film the rehearsal sessions and direct the TV special.

After several conflicting reports surfaced in the music press throughout December, The Beatles eventually regrouped at Twickenham Studios on January 2, 1969, to start the “Get Back” sessions.

In November of 1968, as I was preparing The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus, I got a call from Paul McCartney asking me to come to Apple, The Beatles’ office building in Savile Row. I walked over from the nearby Rolling Scones’ office and went up a flight of stairs to the floor-through space which served as office, living, dining, and conference room. They were all there, and Mal and Neil Aspinall.

Paul said they’d been happy with our recent videos and knew I was busy working for their friendly rivals, the Rolling Stones, but, if I could fit it in, The Beatles wanted to do a television special, partly as a result of their experience playing to the hundred or so people who sang along on Hey Jude.

We’d meet every week or ten days during November and December. After a while it became clear that though Paul was the driver of the bus, one or two of the others might get off at the next stop. The harmony which had existed when they’d first started, and during the heady days of their striding onto the world stage and through Sgt. Pepper and their time after the Maharishi, had gradually been fraying as they spent more time on their own. Touring often holds rock ‘n’ roll bands together.

A few afternoons after we’d finished shooting the RSRNRC. I was at Apple with The Beatles for our last meeting before we were to begin work on the TV special at the beginning of January 1969.

There was a slight sense of project fatigue in the room (this was before we’d even begun). But Paul pushed on. He had the idea that I should shoot documentary footage as they rehearsed, to use as a half hour teaser to be shown the week before the TV special and, as for that, well, we’d figure out what we wanted to do as time went on, because we hadn’t figured it out yet, what it would be or where it would be shot.

[…] I wondered if working with The Beatles on their TV special would be a happy experience. After all, how lucky could I be, first the Rolling Stones and then The Beatles?

Michael Lindsay-Hogg – From “Luck and Circumstance: A Coming of Age in Hollywood, New York, and Points Beyond” by Michael Lindsay-Hogg, 2011

Going further

The Beatles Diary Volume 1: The Beatles Years

"With greatly expanded text, this is the most revealing and frank personal 30-year chronicle of the group ever written. Insider Barry Miles covers the Beatles story from childhood to the break-up of the group."

Buy on Amazon