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McCartney: The Hunt for the Lost Bass

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McCartney: The Hunt for the Lost Bass

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Summary

The disappearance of Paul McCartney's original Höfner bass more than 50 years ago is one of rock 'n' roll's great mysteries and this documentary tells the story of the instrument and the quest to find it. Featuring interviews with the former Beatle, his brother Mike, musicians Klaus Voormann and Elvis Costello, and roadies, journalists and fans who embarked on a mission to return the bass to its place in music history

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Review

David Butcher

By law, all arts documentaries must now begin with an interviewee getting settled in their chair, having make-up applied, the clapperboard being marked and so on, preferably with some muffled chit-chat before the real interview starts. But when the interviewee is Sir Paul McCartney, that cliché is OK, because we’re interested in every word, and how a pop genius comes across when he’s off-guard.

Here, he sings a little tune as he sits down, announces mock-seriously, “The lost bass, yay!” and remarks that “It’s a story, it’s quite a thing.” He’s not wrong. You may or may not care hugely about what became of the famous, violin-shaped Höfner bass guitar that McCartney bought in Hamburg and played on early Beatles songs, before it was stolen from a roadie’s van in the 1970s. But Beatles fans, of whom there are one or two, will care. It’s a long and winding road involving an ambulance driver, a man called Dik Mik, a pub on Ladbroke Grove, and a slew of other procedural twists. And it makes for a touching footnote to rock’n’ roll history.

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rolenameDirectorArthur CaryProducerKatherine AnsteyExecutive producerEmily JealExecutive producerHamish Fergusson

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