Just before singing Taxman, Andre Barreau (pictured as George Harrison) told the audience: “If you think the financial situation is bad now, wait until 2011!” A little later, Neil Harrison’s Lennon introduced I Am The Walrus by saying: “In years to come, this song is going to be covered by a famous tribute band called Oasis!”

Thus the clever little nods by this great Beatles tribute band. But the show’s the thing, and what the Bootlegs provide is more than two hours of the sort of concert the real Beatles might still be doing. The two songs already mentioned demonstrate how brave the BBs are: for every Help, there’s a She’s Leaving Home; yes, there’s a rocking Get Back, but there’s also the occasionally-forgotten last No. 1 the originals had, The Ballad of John and Yoko.

The group sound is awesomely accurate, and the show is enhanced by a string quartet and a couple of energetic brass players (Annette Brown was rightly highlighted for her note-perfect piccolo trumpet playing on Penny Lane). The two most talented individuals are Barreau — very moving with While My Guitar Gently Weeps, very tight guitar work on Roll Over Beethoven — and David Catlin-Birch as Paul McCartney: there was real emotion in the theatre as he sang the inevitable Yesterday and closed proceedings with Hey Jude.

Hugo Degenhardt is an enthusiastic Ringo, doing good drumming work, especially on Strawberry Fields Forever. Harrison’s John caught the original Lennon’s caustic banter perfectly and is called upon to lead on probably the bravest pair of songs in the show: A Day In The Life and Imagine (the only non-Beatles hit, but who cared!) As a die-hard Beatles fan only a couple of years shy of the proper age for 1960s Fab-worship, I thought it was great to see how many much younger people were enjoying themselves in the audience — proving the enduring appeal of the original band and the excellence of the Bootlegs.