The Beatles: Eight Days a Week – The Touring Years (part 1)

03/10/25 • 50 min

Has Ron Howard's 2016 documentary effectively been superseded by other films since? Probably the first official Apple film to be released as part of the Beatles legacy project, it's very polished and pays a lot of respect to fan culture, in particular teenage girls. But nine years on, does it cover too much of the same ground as other films, like Beatles '64, to be significant?

You can rent the film online in a few places: https://www.justwatch.com/uk/movie/the-beatles-eight-days-a-week-the-touring-years or pick up the two-disc Blu-ray for the special features, which really complement the film as we discuss.
The detail about Matt White's role in originating the idea for the film comes from this article by his friend David Royle, written after White passed away: https://documentarytelevision.com/case-study/in-memory-of-matt-white-david-royles-tribute-to-the-late-archivist-and-producer/
Read Ed's review from 2016: https://www.theshiznit.co.uk/review/the-beatles-eight-days-a-week--the-touring-years.php
Watch the trailer: https://youtu.be/0fFyZzqPDws
The clip of teenage fans at Shea Stadium in 1965, one of whom may or may not be Meryl Streep: https://youtu.be/x6aNSHLg18Y

Meet the Beatles Films Podcast

The Beatles Films Podcast is hosted by Matt Looker and Ed Williamson. We're both film writers and Beatles fans. Between us we've written for TheShiznit.co.uk, Total Film, Den of Geek and Virgin Media.

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You can rent the film online in a few places: https://www.justwatch.com/uk/movie/the-beatles-eight-days-a-week-the-touring-years or pick up the two-disc Blu-ray for the special features, which really complement the film as we discuss.
The detail about Matt White's role in originating the idea for the film comes from this article by his friend David Royle, written after White passed away: https://documentarytelevision.com/case-study/in-memory-of-matt-white-david-royles-tribute-to-the-late-archivist-and-producer/
Read Ed's review from 2016: https://www.theshiznit.co.uk/review/the-beatles-eight-days-a-week--the-touring-years.php
Watch the trailer: https://youtu.be/0fFyZzqPDws
The clip of teenage fans at Shea Stadium in 1965, one of whom may or may not be Meryl Streep: https://youtu.be/x6aNSHLg18Y

Meet the Beatles Films Podcast

But tomorrow may rain, so you'll follow us on:

Instagram https://instagram.com/beatlesfilmspod
Bluesky https://bsky.app/profile/beatlesfilmspod.bsky.social
YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@BeatlesFilmsPodcast
Threads https://www.threads.net/@beatlesfilmspod
X https://x.com/beatlesfilmpod
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/304654901827622

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Previous Episode

Doctor Who: The Devil's Chord

The coming together of two great British cultural institutions feels fated, but how well did Russell T. Davies pull it off? We look, of course, at how accurate they've been when it comes to Beatle detail, and in particular at the characterisations of John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Matt, a Whovian, explains how this episode fits into the canon and how this season of Doctor Who compared tonally to others, while Ed, who thinks he might have seen a couple of the Christopher Eccleston ones 20 years ago, mainly just listens.

Watch the episode on BBC iPlayer if you're in the UK and have a licence: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001z8c7/doctor-who-season-1-2-the-devils-chord
Or on Disney Plus if not: https://www.disneyplus.com/series/doctor-who/1ml73V6phgyZ
Some clips of the a non-Eccleston Doctor playing a Beatle (identities revealed in the episode): https://youtu.be/cOzmhlgwM4E
Hear the Beatles-related Doctor Who audio story, Fanfare for the Common Men, on the "Into the TARDIS" podcast: https://shows.acast.com/into-the-tardis/episodes/doctor-who-1963-fanfare-for-the-common-men-part-1

Meet the Beatles Films Podcast

But tomorrow may rain, so you'll follow us on:

Instagram https://instagram.com/beatlesfilmspod
Bluesky https://bsky.app/profile/beatlesfilmspod.bsky.social
YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@BeatlesFilmsPodcast
Threads https://www.threads.net/@beatlesfilmspod
X https://x.com/beatlesfilmpod
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/304654901827622

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Next Episode

The Beatles: Eight Days a Week – The Touring Years (part 2)

We finish off this season with a look at the film's use of footage that's been colourised from black and white. Was this done, as Iain Lee suggested to Ed on his Talk Radio show in 2016, because American audiences don't like black and white? We think there's a bit of mileage in that: more specifically that the brief here was to present this footage to a new audience with a bit of sheen. We also discuss talking heads in the film like Eddie Izzard, and look at what they contributed, as well as some who appear only in the Blu-ray extras, like Paul Greengrass.

Here's the full audio of the eight-minute call Ed made to Iain Lee's radio show after they'd both seen Eight Days a Week in the same screening, August 2016: https://youtu.be/dOggLQlN8GU
The film we mention coming to IMAX briefly in April 2025 is One to One: John and Yoko: https://www.imax.com/en/gb/movie/one-to-one-john-and-yoko