In Perth Theatre’s rehearsal room, they have made a display of early-1960s paraphernalia. It is to get the cast in the mood for There’s A Place, a new play by Gabriel Quigley set exactly 60 years ago when The Beatles enjoyed a brief holiday on the banks of Loch Earn. In the middle of the display is a picture from the Rutherglen Reformer of a teenage Irene Brown who, with her friend Margaret McGowan, set up the Scottish Beatles fan club.
Now living in Edinburgh, Brown is one of several women Quigley has consulted to ensure the authenticity of her play. It is about a gang of Beatlemaniacs who camp out across the loch in the hope of meeting their heroes whose tour took them to Dundee’s Caird Hall on 20 October 1964. For Brown, there is nothing fanciful about Quigley’s story. Only a year earlier in June 1963, she had done pretty much the same thing. [READ MORE]