Folk musician Barbara Dickson wrote on Twitter/X; “It’s with great sadness that I note the death of Bernard Hill. We worked together in John, Paul, George, Ringo and Bert, Willy Russell's marvelous show 1974-1975. A really marvelous actor. It was a privilege to have crossed paths with him. RIP Benny x”.

The play opened at the Everyman Theatre in Liverpool in May 1974, directed by Alan Dossor. It ran for eight weeks, then moved to the Lyric Theatre in London, where it ran for a year and was named "Best Musical of 1974" by the Evening Standard Theatre Awards and London Critics' Awards.

It had what proved to be a very distinguished cast;
Bert: George Costigan
John Lennon: Bernard Hill
Paul McCartney: Trevor Eve
George Harrison: Phillip Joseph
Ringo Starr: Anthony Sher
Barbara Dickson sang the songs of the Beatles.

The queue for the theatre stretched around the Everyman, and was entertained by a group of buskers who wandered up and down. Once the queue had entered the theatre, the play began with the buskers walking up the centre aisle and taking their places on the stage. What a wonderful evening!