Radio: Saturday Club

En route to Fairfield Hall in Croydon, where they performed later that evening, The Beatles recorded an appearance on the BBC radio show Saturday Club at London’s Playhouse Theatre.

The session lasted from 1-4pm. The Beatles performed six songs: ‘I Saw Her Standing There’, ‘Memphis, Tennessee’, Happy Birthday Saturday Club, ‘I’ll Get You’, ‘She Loves You’, and ‘Lucille’.

The last of these was included on 1994’s Live At The BBC. ‘Happy Birthday Saturday Club’, meanwhile, was based on the traditional song ‘Happy Birthday’, but performed in the style of Eddie Cochran.

This edition of Saturday Club marked the programmes’s 5th anniversary. The two-hour show was broadcast from 10am on Saturday 5 October 1963 on the BBC Light Programme service.

After recording the Saturday Club session, Paul McCartney gave a brief interview to the BBC radio series A World Of Sound. The interview was conducted by producer Rosemary Hart, and was broadcast from 4.30pm on 21 November 1963, in a special episode titled ‘Liverpool: A Swinging City’.