White Wall Cinema: A HARD DAY’S NIGHT + Q&A with Samira Ahmed
4K REMASTER
August 21 @ 6:45 pm – 10:30 pm
Join us for a special screening of the 1964 Beatles classic A Hard Day’s Night, followed by a Q&A with acclaimed journalist, broadcaster, and author Samira Ahmed, whose BFI Film Classics book explores the film’s enduring legacy and cultural impact.
Samira Ahmed is the host of the BBC’s flagship arts programme Front Row on Radio 4, where she interviews leading film directors, actors, writers, and creators from across the cultural world. She also presents Newswatch on the BBC News Channel. In 2020, she was named Audio Presenter of the Year by the Broadcasting Press Guild. A lifelong Beatles fan, Ahmed’s love for the film began in the late 1970s, watching her older brother’s home-recorded Betamax copy until it wore out. Decades later, the film once again became a source of inspiration spurring her on during her landmark 2020 legal victory against the BBC in a high-profile sex discrimination equal pay case.
Alongside the screening and Q&A, there will also be an opportunity to purchase copies of Samira’s fascinating book on the film and have them personally signed. Buy the General Admission + Book option at checkout to ensure your copy.
*** PLEASE NOTE – Doors for this event open at 6.40pm in order that you can enjoy the beer garden prior to the screening. Please arrive before 7.30pm so that the Q&A can begin promptly.
Before going on to direct multiple Musketeer and Superman movies, director Richard Lester created what would become not only a cornerstone of Beatles mythology, but also one of the most influential musical films ever made. Widely credited with helping invent the modern music video (for which he would receive the first MTV Vanguard award at the inaugural MTV Video Music Awards in 1984), A Hard Day’s Night remains a landmark of British cinema and pop culture.
From its exhilarating opening moments, with the Fab Four fleeing screaming fans through the streets of London, the film never lets up. John, Paul, George, and Ringo race from chaos to comedy as they attempt to make it to a live television performance, accompanied by Paul’s mischievous “very clean” grandfather, played by Wilfrid Brambell (Steptoe and Son).
The Beatles’ wit, irreverent Liverpudlian humour, and extraordinary musical charisma are on full display throughout, as the film blazed a trail directly setting the template for everything from The Monkees television series to Spice World Spice Girls feature film. Filmed only weeks after the Beatles’ legendary appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, A Hard Day’s Night captures the group at the precise moment they transformed from pop sensation into global phenomenon.
*No hot food or alcohol from outside the premises is allowed. All alcoholic drinks consumed on the premises must be purchased from the bar as per the conditions of the venue’s licence.
- DOORS: 6.40pm*
- START TIME: 7.30pm*
- RUN TIME: 87 mins + discussion
- CERT: PG
