Patel plays Jack, a useless bloke from Lowestoft who works in a retail warehouse and has big dreams of making it as a singer-songwriter. But that’s enough about the fact that his best mate is Lily James who is probably in love with him. Himesh Patel (from EastEnders and Channel 4’s Damned) steps up amiably and confidently to his starring role as the classic Richard Curtis lovably-hopeless-and-rubbish character with a supportive gallery of friends he gets a wild stroke of fortune that could never ever happen in real life.

Yet there is a weird and heavy backwash of sadness at the end, a kind of melancholy comedown, and I can’t quite decide if that was intentional or not.īest mates … Himesh Patel and Lily James. It’s ridiculous and indulgent at all times, like Russell Crowe shouting his “Are you not entertained” line from Gladiator wearing a Beatles wig. And, although this film can be a bit hokey and uncertain on narrative development, the puppyish zest and fun summoned up by Curtis and Boyle carry it along. Maybe it shouldn’t be any sort of evaluative factor, but the simple fact of hearing Beatles songs, the simple thought experiment of pretending to hear them for the first time, does carry a charge. It is directed with dash and gusto by Danny Boyle. Screenwriter Richard Curtis’s goofy, wacky, exasperatingly enjoyable fantasy-comedy riffs on ideas like these with a story co-written with Jack Barth – although it turns out TV’s Goodnight Sweetheart got to the idea first. In a Beatle-less universe, Mike McGear could be Bono’s producer and best mate and Jeff Lynne is president of the world. and then … no Imagine, no all-time best Bond theme (Live and Let Die), no all-time best comedy band name (Ringo Deathstarr), no Concert for Bangladesh to inspire Live Aid, no Withnail & I, no Life of Brian – but then again, no Charles Manson. No Yesterday, no Blackbird, no Sgt Pepper. Imagine no Beatles, it’s not easy even if you try.

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