The BBC has announced a new drama series titled Hamburg Days, which will explore the early years of the Beatles in the German port city of Hamburg.
The six-part series covers the period between 1960 and 1962, when the band performed over 250 gigs near the notorious Reeperbahn district.
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Scriptwriter Jamie Carragher revealed that the production will highlight the often overlooked role of Harold Adolphus Phillips, also known as Lord Woodbine.
Jorden Myrie will portray Phillips, who served as an early co-manager and musical mentor to the young group alongside Allan Williams.
“He’s represented as very much the friend and partner of Allan Williams,” Carragher said. “Woodbine was older than the Beatles, but also played music himself.
He knew about music.”
Phillips was a Trinidadian calypso musician who arrived in Britain in 1943 as a Royal Air Force flight engineer during the Second World War.
He later returned to the United Kingdom on the Empire Windrush and settled in Liverpool, where he managed the Jacaranda club.
“McCartney and Lennon respected him in a musical sense,” Carragher added.
“There weren’t many people in their lives at this point who wrote their own songs, and Lord Woodbine did that via the calypso tradition.”
Academic Malik Al Nasir researched Phillips for the British Library, noting how the musician helped the band by teaching them chords.
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