“Now These I Could Scream For” — Jane Asher on The Beatles, 1963
Originally published in Radio Times, 2 May 1963, p.39. Written by Tony Aspler.
On 18 April 1963, The Beatles performed at the Royal Albert Hall as part of the BBC Light Programme’s Swinging Sound ’63 concert. It was their debut at the venue — and the night Paul McCartney first met Jane Asher.
What fewer people know is that Jane was there in a professional capacity, invited by Radio Times journalist Tony Aspler to give her impressions of the show. Her review appeared in the magazine on 2 May 1963, on page 39 — and it contains one of the most quoted lines in Beatles fan history.
The Original Radio Times Review
The following is reproduced from Radio Times, 2 May 1963:
“Now these I could scream for . . .”
Jane Asher, a favourite Juke Box Jury panelist, has very definite views on pop music and speaks her mind with disarming frankness. As we sat in the stalls (a football-pitch length from the stage) I took down her comments — those I could hear above the roar.
After a few minutes Jane turned to me: ‘It’s weird how the sound fills the entire hall, seeing the singers at such a distance. It gives you a funny feeling.’
Jane studied the faces around her: ‘It seems only the girls are enjoying themselves. It really is a girl’s show.’
The Beatles bounded on stage and the noise of their reception reached the threshold of pain. ‘Now these I could scream for,’ said Jane — with a little prompting from our photographer she did, and felt better for it.
Of the show in general, Jane said: ‘It ran very smoothly. It’s fabulous to see all those singers together.’ And in a word? ‘Noisy.’
— Tony Aspler, Radio Times, 2 May 1963, p.39
Why This Moment Matters
Jane Asher’s attendance at Swinging Sound ’63 was not accidental — she was a working journalist that evening, not yet a Beatles insider. Her reaction to The Beatles (“Now these I could scream for”) captures the precise moment before everything changed: before the introduction backstage, before Wimpole Street, before five years of one of the most culturally significant relationships of the decade.
The review is also a rare document of what it felt like to be in that hall — the distance from the stage, the overwhelming sound, the almost exclusively female audience in the grip of early Beatlemania.
What Happened After the Concert
Following the performance, Paul McCartney met Jane Asher backstage. According to Paul’s own account in The Beatles Anthology:
“I met Jane Asher when she was sent by the Radio Times to cover a concert we were in at the Royal Albert Hall — we had a photo taken with her for the magazine and we all fancied her… I tried pulling her, succeeded, and we were boyfriend and girlfriend for quite a long time.”
That meeting would lead to a five-year relationship that shaped some of the Beatles’ most celebrated recordings.
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