Brian Epstein struggled with his gay and Jewish identities, says Tom Wright, who explores those conflicts in his play Please Please Me

I was interested in writing about the experiences of gay men in the 1960s. These men often seemed traumatised knowing that life could be wonderful, but also that they could be arrested.

Brian Epstein's gay and Jewish identities were hugely influential in his journey with The Beatles, but have remained largely unexplored. He became alienated from his Judaism, as well as from a sense of spirituality. The Beatles had the opposite journey. They found meditation and gurus. Brian was distrustful of that. There's a scene in my play where John is talking to Brian, saying, "Come and meditate." Brian asks, "What would your gurus think of me lying with other men?"

*Brian Epstein with the band during a break from TV filming © Alamy*

Brian was discharged from the army, probably because he was gay. He went to drama school, got caught cottaging and was arrested, and kept that from his family. Then, in Liverpool, he got beaten up when he was cruising in the docks and was blackmailed. With the support of his family he took the case to the police. But to come out to his family when it was still illegal imagine the scale of that? He had this deep shame.

In the play I explore the fact that although The Beatles loved Brian like a father, John was pretty offensive to him at times. When Brian stumbled across the band in their leather jackets, smoking and swearing, it's obvious that he fancied the hell out of them. His desire manifested in his drive to make them stars and it influenced his decisions: he tidied them up, put them in the suits you could bring them home to Mum and Dad. He knew he could never bring the men he liked home to his parents.

By Tom Wright

Header photo by David Lindsay

Please Please Me runs Thursday 16 April – Saturday 23 May. 7.30pm, 2.30pm (Wed & Sat only). From £15. Kiln Theatre, NW6 7JR. kilntheatre.com

This article appears in the Winter 2026 issue of JR.