BBC Drama Hamburg Days to Depict Early Beatles Associate Harold Phillips

A new BBC drama titled Hamburg Days will examine the Beatles' performances in Hamburg from 1960 to 1962, when the band played more than 250 gigs near the Reeperbahn. The six-part series, written by Jamie Carragher, will portray Harold Phillips, known as Lord Woodbine, as an early co-manager and mentor. The Guardian reported that Jorden Myrie will play Phillips.

Carragher said Phillips was older than the Beatles, played music himself, and knew about music. Phillips managed the Jacaranda club in Liverpool and, with Allan Williams, became co-manager of the group. Phillips, a Trinidadian calypso musician, came to Britain in 1943 and served as a Royal Air Force flight engineer during the Second World War.

After the war he returned to the Caribbean before arriving in the UK on the Empire Windrush, where he stood beside Lord Kitchener at Tilbury Dock. He later moved to Liverpool to find his wartime sweetheart and started a family in Toxteth. Malik Al Nasir, who researched Phillips for the British Library’s Beyond the Bassline exhibition, said Lennon and McCartney offered to clean and collect glasses at the Jacaranda in exchange for food and chord lessons from Phillips.

One of the first songs John Lennon wrote was called Calypso Rock. Phillips worked as a builder and decorator around Merseyside and tended bar in Liverpool 8 clubs. Some histories claim Phillips initiated the move to Hamburg and drove the Beatles there in a beaten-up Volkswagen.

Al Nasir said Phillips picked them up when no one else cared. Phillips died in a house fire at age 72 in 2000. His family unveiled a Windrush Foundation plaque dedicated to him outside the Jacaranda last summer.