Studio goes public for festival

by Caroline Westbrook
BBC News Entertainment reporter

Several photos of The Beatles are featured in the exhibition

The public is to be given a rare glimpse inside London's world famous Abbey Road studios where The Beatles recorded many of their songs.

The studio is playing host to the first ever Abbey Road Film Festival, paying tribute to some of the many film scores that have been recorded there over the past 25 years.

"We've decided to open the doors up so that all those people who write their name on the wall outside and use the zebra crossing can actually have an opportunity to come in for the first time in a generation," said David Holley, managing director of EMI Studios Group UK.

The festival began on 17 March with a special screening of Raiders of the Lost Ark, which was the first film to have its score, composed by John Williams, recorded at the studio in 1981.

Over the next 16 days a host of other films associated with the studio will be shown, including Braveheart, Notting Hill, Aliens, Brazil, Pink Floyd: The Wall and Backbeat, as well as the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

The films will be shown in Studio One, where the Fab Four famously recorded All You Need Is Love.

Studio Two, where the band made the bulk of their music, is also being thrown open to the public with a display of photographs of musicians and performers who have used the studio since its 1931 opening.

Zebra crossing

The Beatles feature prominently in the exhibition, with snaps of Paul McCartney in the studio canteen, producer George Martin, and John Lennon and Ringo Starr recording Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Lord of The Rings' Peter Jackson and Howard Shore worked there

Shots of veteran performers such as Gracie Fields, Dirk Bogarde and Noel Coward sit alongside images of director Peter Jackson and composer Howard Shore, working on the music for the Lord of the Rings films.

Mr Holley said the studios were last opened to the public in 1982 when a control room desk was being changed.

Both Studios One and Two were opened for a few weeks with a small exhibition of Beatles memorabilia on display.

Mr Holley added the film festival would be a "unique chance to visit the studio".

"This exhibition is new and being able to see a film in the room where its music was scored is unusual," he said.

Custom-built

The images were chosen by Nick Hornby, author of books including High Fidelity and About A Boy.

"He got involved in creating this," said Mr Holley, "so between me, our art director and Nick Hornby, we've come up with this selection."

The studio, the first custom-built recording complex in the world, started life as a house but was purchased by EMI in 1929. Two years later it was opened, initially catering for artists on the EMI label.

John Williams (right) scored Raiders of the Lost Ark at the studio

The first recording was on 12 November that year, with Sir Edward Elgar conducting a recording of Land of Hope and Glory by the London Symphony Orchestra.

It was also the place where legendary bandleader Glenn Miller made his last recording a few weeks before his plane went missing over the English Channel.

Other acts to use the facilities in the studio's earlier days were Cliff Richard, Max Bygraves and Eddie Calvert.

Decoration

In the 1970s, it was opened up for use by artists other than those on EMI, and played host to the likes of Spandau Ballet, Simple Minds, Kirsty Macoll, XTC and Mike Oldfield.

More recently Radiohead, Manic Street Preachers, Oasis and Gomez have all recorded there.

George Martin produced many of The Beatles' albums

Since it took on film work, however, more than 200 films have been scored there as well - from blockbusters such as Interview With The Vampire, Apollo 13, Shrek and the Harry Potter movies through to smaller productions, including Brassed Off and Girl With a Pearl Earring.

But despite being in high demand, the studios have had little renovation over the decades.

"The decorations in Studio Two haven't changed at all, The Beatles even put the lights up in it," My Holley said.

"The studio now is exactly what it would have looked like then, and you can almost sense the people who have been in here before."