Features
4,000 Holes In Albert Hall
What appears to be the Royal Albert Hall ’s staff paper has revealed that documents recently discovered somewhere in its vaults show that in 1967 the famous London venue wrote to The Beatles to object “in the strongest conceivable terms” to being named in “A Day in the Life.”
Photo: Photo by Joel Ryan / Invision / AP
The cast of “Interstellar” poses with physicist Stephen Hawking outside the Royal Albert Hall marking the “Interstellar Live” show March 30. The sci-fi movie was screened accompanied by a live 60-piece orchestra led by composer Hans Zimmer.
Possibly to add to the story’s authenticity, the paper that goes “Behind The Scenes At The Royal Albert Hall” explained the letters were “unearthed whilst clearing an old archive room as part of the hall’s ongoing steam heating refurbishment project.”
The lyric in question goes: “Read the news today oh boy / Four thousand holes in Blackburn, Lancashire /And though the holes were rather small / They had to count them all / Now they know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall/ I’d love to turn you on.”
The story goes on to say Mr. Ernest O’Follipar, who was apparently the RHA’s chief exec of the day, wrote to The Beatles manager Brian Epstein and said “the wrong-headed assumption that there are four thousand holes in our auditorium” threatened to destroy the venue’s business overnight.
Liz Harper, the hall’s current archives manager, is quoted as saying, “These documents cast new light on a key moment of rock history.”
In addition to its staff reading very silly stories about a former RAH exec with a name that’s an anagram of April Fool (O’Follipar), the venue recently hosted the Teenage Cancer Trust shows.
Details of attendance and how much was raised weren’t available at press time.