Updated:
1:22 PM January 23, 2021
A delighted Sir Michael Caine with the blue plaque he unveiled outside the school he attended as a wartime evacuee in North Runcton.
- Credit: John Hocknell
Pablo Fanque's blue plaque
- Credit: Antony Kelly
The Beatles, Norwich
On May 17, 1963 Beatlemania came to Norwich when the Fab Four played their one and only concert in the city. The venue was the Grosvenor Rooms in Prince of Wales Road and the queue of eager fans stretched back to the ABC Cinema. To mark the show, the EDP and Norwich School of Art and Design (now Norwich University of the Arts) put up a blue plaque on Grosvenor House as part of a series highlighting surprising aspects of the county's cultural heritage. Another of the city's blue plaques has a Beatles link too. At John Lewis on All Saints Green there's a Discover Norwich blue plaque dedicated to Pablo Fanque. Real name William Darby, he was the first black British circus proprietor and was born in Norwich. And as fans will know, The Beatles namecheck him in a line of the song Being for the Benefit of Mr Kite, on the landmark Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album.