Liverpool's most famous sons are being celebrated in a Beatles-themed hotel, and the result is a dream come true for fans of John, Paul, George and Ringo, writes Tony Clayton-Lea.
Is it the first in the world? U2 have their own Dublin hotel with the Clarence, there are the by now cliched "rock'n'roll" hotels dotted around the globe (New York's Chelsea, London's Columbia) and various hotels have their Madonna suites and Prince boudoirs, but it's quite possible there isn't a hotel dedicated to a specific music act. Until now, that is.
Liverpool's Hard Days Night Hotel - a Beatles-themed establishment, as if you needed telling by now - opened its doors last weekend, and as the first music writer to be invited to stay there I can say with neither cynicism nor bias that I felt like Charlie in the chocolate factory. Yes, I admit that I swiped Hard Days Night Hotel pens, notepaper and one of the smartest double-sided "Do Not Disturb"/"Please Clean Room" signs I've seen in all my years.
The sign, seeing as you ask, reads "I've Had A Hard Day's Night"/"Help!', and on the fourth floor, at the very least, there wasn't one left hanging on the outside door handle at night for fear of it being "appropriated" in the wee small hours by someone far more obsessed with The Beatles than myself.
The four-star boutique hotel set in the heart of the city's Beatles Quarter, seconds away from Mathew Street and the Cavern Club, in which John, Paul, George and Pete (Best, soon to be deposed by Ringo Starr) originally played, has been a long time coming. A Beatles-themed hotel had been mooted for Liverpool for more than 20 years but a reluctant city council and others have been blamed for looking a gift horse in the mouth and ignoring it.
In the early 1980s, Michael Heseltine, responsible at the time for rejuvenating Britain's inner cities, established the Merseyside Development Corporation and encouraged the city to elevate The Beatles into a stand-alone tourism industry.
The location for such a themed hotel was obvious - as close to the Cavern as it was possible to get. There was a stumbling block, however, in that the only clear option was an occupied Grade II listed building that dated back to 1884.
Originally known as Central Buildings, and situated within the city's original business district, it was designated during the second World War as the back-up location for allied command headquarters during the Battle of the Atlantic.
As the city developed, Central Buildings became an iconic architectural landmark and, when it finally came up for sale several years ago, the business people who had been lying in wait pounced. Four years and £20 million later, its opening has coincided with Liverpool's European Capital of Culture celebrations.
BUT IS THE hotel what it says it is? Or is it just like all the other themed leisure establishments in numerous cities around the world, such as the Hard Rock Cafe franchise, as yet another tiresome example of something that's all dressed up with nowhere to go? Having spent three nights and three days there last weekend, soaking up the interior atmosphere, ogling the artwork and being impressed by the acute attention to detail, I can state with reasonable assurance that you have never seen (or stayed in) anything like it.
The most crucial aspect of the enterprise is that it works as much as a hotel as a celebration of The Beatles. The interior is stylised, smooth and modern, with much being made out of the original building's internal spiral staircase, which runs from bottom to top, with a twisting chronological history of the Fab Four on its walls. Liverpudlian accents ring throughout the building, while the mostly young staff members are willing, enthusiastic and helpful. The trump design card, however, is played with a flourish in relation to the artwork.
Sequenced in defined, distinct areas (the brasserie, the upstairs bar, residents-only lounge, Hari's, all the bedrooms and the hotel's two suites), the artwork includes commissions by New Jersey artist Shannon, who is widely regarded as the world's greatest Beatles artist. Alongside many flash-coloured portraits of the band - together and separately - are works from Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, close Beatles associates Paul Ygartua and Klaus Voormann, and a photographic record of the hotel's development by Mike McCartney (Paul's brother, and one time member of Liverpudlian group The Scaffold).
Other very neat touches include the hotel's multi-layered logo, Beatles sheet music hanging from the reception ceiling, the hotel entrance walls adorned with names culled from Beatles songs (Rita, Edgar Allan Poe, Mr Mustard, Billy Shears, Rocky) and a cocktail menu that includes the scrumptious concoction Honey Can't Buy Me Love.
CAN EVEN A confirmed Beatles fan, however, withstand the pressure of hearing their music day after day? Here's the thing: I can think of fewer music-related highlights of my life than sitting down to breakfast in the hotel's fine dining restaurant, Blakes (named after Sir Peter Blake, designer of the cover of Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band), opening a newspaper and hearing the first line of A Day in the Life.
Call it synchronicity, call it what you want, but you'd have to agree with one of the chipper older members of staff, who, when he hears me humming a fab-four tune in the lift, says: "It's only when you don't hear their music for a while that you realise how bloody brilliant it is." The hotel isn't too bad, either.