Live: Roxburgh Hall, Stowe School, Buckingham

One of The Beatles’ more unusual live engagements, certainly for 1963: a performance at Stowe School in Buckinghamshire.

Stowe School was a prestigious all-boys public school. The event came about after one of the pupils, David Moores from Liverpool, contacted Brian Epstein to see if The Beatles would consider performing. Epstein was impressed enough with Moores’ approach that he agreed to the booking.

The performance in the school’s Roxburgh Hall was unusual for another reason: the boys sat in neat rows watching the performance, without a single scream to be heard. David Magnus, an assistant to the photographer Dezo Hoffman, took a number of photos of the event.

A recording of The Beatles in conversation backstage after the performance was auctioned in Japan in 1997.