Maha Albadrawi

A Hard Day’s Night at 60: how The Beatles made the movies pop

Sixty years old this year, Richard Lester’s musical comedy – in which The Beatles good-naturedly weather the storm of their early fame – helped establish the idea of a pop star persona. Through the Fab Four to Take That, One Direction and Taylor Swift, the lines between public and private, star and fan, reality and fantasy have been blurry ever since.