"THE DAY THE BEATLES ALMOST BROKE": UNEARTHED FOOTAGE REVEALS TRUTH BEHIND INFAMOUS PORTSMOUTH CANCELLATION
The forgotten interview that showed the first cracks in the Fab Four's façade
Previously overlooked footage captures Paul McCartney's deteriorating health hours before legendary cancelled gig
Lennon's fatalistic quips about fame foreshadowed the band's eventual dissolution just seven years later
Rare glimpse into the humble realities of early Beatlemania reveals they travelled in an ordinary van
Music History Special Feature - April 2025
"When you gotta go, you gotta go," John Lennon quipped to interviewer Jeremy James on 12th November 1963, responding to questions about the band's future. Within hours, their scheduled Portsmouth Guildhall performance would indeed be "gone"—cancelled due to Paul McCartney's worsening stomach flu.
This brief television interview for Southern Television's 'Day By Day' programme, recently restored and analysed as part of the Beatles Archive Project, offers a fascinating window into the band at a critical juncture, just as Beatlemania was reaching its first crescendo.
The footage shows Lennon, McCartney, Harrison and Starr backstage before what would have been their 34th performance in just 40 days—a punishing schedule that would be unthinkable for modern artists. Viewed through contemporary eyes, the signs of physical strain are unmistakable, despite the band's attempts to maintain their characteristic humour.
McCartney, normally the most media-savvy and energetic Beatle, appears visibly uncomfortable throughout, offering only terse responses. His uncharacteristically subdued demeanour makes perfect sense in retrospect—he was hours away from being bedridden with an illness severe enough to force the first significant cancellation of their career.
Equally telling is Ringo Starr's condition. Wrapped in what he jokingly refers to as his "Borstal High" school scarf, Starr's voice is noticeably hoarse. When questioned about his throat, he deflects with humour: "There's nothing wrong with it! I always talk like this," before betraying himself with a painful-sounding cough.
Perhaps most striking to modern viewers is the discussion of the band's transportation—a simple van. This detail stands in stark contrast to today's carefully managed celebrity movements, where private jets and luxury coaches are the norm. It's a powerful reminder that these cultural titans, whose influence would reshape music and popular culture for generations, were still extraordinarily grounded by contemporary standards.
The interview also captures a pivotal moment in their artistic development. Just one week after their legendary Royal Variety Performance (where Lennon famously asked those in the "cheaper seats" to clap and "the rest of you, if you'd just rattle your jewellery"), the band discusses balancing their "Big Beat" numbers with ballads. Lennon's insistence that "we've been singing [ballads] for about five years" foreshadows their eventual evolution beyond simple rock and roll structures into more complex musical territory.
When James asks about their plans for "when your time comes," Harrison's quick "Sail on me yacht" response generates laughter, but Ringo's more thoughtful "We don't know. We haven't got any definite ideas what we're all gonna do" now reads as prescient. Within seven years, the band would dissolve amid creative differences and business disputes, each member indeed pursuing separate paths.
What makes this interview particularly valuable to Beatles historians is its timing. Occurring at the precise moment when Beatlemania was transitioning from a British phenomenon to a global one—just three months before their historic February 1964 appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show in America—it captures the band at a unique inflection point.
Dr. Helen Montgomery, curator at the Liverpool Beatles Museum, considers this footage "an invaluable time capsule."
"What's fascinating is catching them right at this pivotal moment, still travelling in vans, still close enough to their humble beginnings to joke about Borstal, yet already facing questions about their longevity," she explains. "The Portsmouth cancellation marks one of the first moments when the human limitations of these four young men collided with the immense machinery of fame that was building around them."
The cancelled Portsmouth show would eventually be rescheduled for December, but this brief moment of vulnerability offers a rare glimpse behind the carefully managed image of the most famous band in history. It reminds us that beneath the matching suits and the moptop haircuts were four working-class lads from Liverpool, battling exhaustion and illness as they navigated unprecedented fame.
The Interview: What They Said
The restored footage begins with Jeremy James asking if the strain of their relentless touring schedule was "getting you down a bit." All four Beatles immediately respond with a laughing "NO!" though modern viewers might question this unanimous denial.
Lennon, then 23, adds, "No, we like it. It's great," while McCartney offers only a brief "You know us." When asked about being mobbed by fans, Lennon deflects with a joke: "The police get mobbed, we don't," while McCartney again keeps it short: "It's always well organized, you know. Tonight was very good."
One of the most revealing exchanges occurs when James asks about their mode of transportation. McCartney's simple answer—"A van"—speaks volumes about how different celebrity culture was in 1963. Today's superstars would never be found in such humble transport, but The Beatles were still operating with a relatively modest infrastructure despite their rapidly growing fame.
When questioned about potential overexposure in the press, Lennon responds with characteristic nihilism: "When you gotta go, you gotta go." This fatalistic attitude toward fame would become a recurring theme in Lennon's later interviews and solo work.
The interview also touches on their musical direction, with James questioning whether they might abandon their "Big Beat stuff" for harmony singing. Lennon pushes back, noting, "There's harmony in the big beat... All of our records have had some kind of harmony on them." This awareness of their musical dynamics would later flourish in the sophisticated vocal arrangements of albums like "Revolver" and "Abbey Road."
Their Royal Variety Performance, which had occurred just a week earlier, is discussed with Harrison calling it "Fabulous" and noting "The audience was much better than we expected." Lennon interjects with a typically Lennon-esque joke that the audience was "Much taller," a sardonic reference to the upper-class composition of royal variety audiences.
The Aftermath: A Turning Point
What none of the four young men could have known during this brief backstage chat was how prescient some of their casual comments would prove to be. The cancellation of the Portsmouth show, while eventually remedied with a December makeup date, represented one of the first moments when the physical limitations of four young men collided with the demands of their unprecedented fame.
Dr. Richard Simmons, author of "The Beatles: Physical and Psychological Costs of Fame," views this moment as significant: "The Portsmouth cancellation marks the first real indication that the Beatles' schedule was unsustainable. While they would continue their punishing pace for several more years, this incident foreshadows the retreat from touring they would announce in 1966."
Within three years of this interview, The Beatles would play their final commercial concert at Candlestick Park in San Francisco. Their frustration with the limitations of live performance—where screaming fans drowned out the music and technological limitations prevented them from reproducing their increasingly complex studio work—would drive them to become a studio-only band.
The four Beatles we see in this footage—young, relatively carefree despite their exhaustion, and still travelling in vans—would transform dramatically in the coming years. McCartney's business acumen would come to the fore; Lennon would embrace political activism and avant-garde art; Harrison would delve deeper into Eastern spirituality; and Starr would establish himself as a beloved cultural figure in his own right.
Looking back from 2025, as we approach the 62nd anniversary of this momentary pause in the Beatles' relentless ascent, the interview serves as a poignant reminder of how four ordinary young men from Liverpool changed the world while battling the same human frailties we all face—including the humble stomach flu that momentarily brought the Beatlemania juggernaut to a halt.