If you were to list “things people know about The Beatles”, the screaming fans would probably be in the top five. Screaming at gigs and at airports, waiting outside their houses and breaking in through bathroom windows. McCartney had an elaborate escape route out of the Asher’s house. Lennon’s marriage was hidden and then Cynthia talked about having to get past fans just to get to the front door of her flat in London.

In this sense, the fandom is often seen a predominantly female. Has anyone got any contemporary fan opinions of Run For Your Life or You Can’t Do That?

The stories of boys and The Beatles tends to revolve around inspiring them to become musicians. Huh.

In the UK, Peaky Blinders has been a phenomenally successfully television show at cultivating a male fandom that has transferred most notably in some fashion trends. Interestingly, the whole thing has now transformed into a major dance performance by the Rambert Dance Company. It was something the other half wanted to see so tickets were booked and handed over as a Christmas present and, recently, we trooped off to Southampton, not really sure what to expect.

For some reason, I thought the audience would skew significantly female, possibly an outdated gendered assumption about dance. There were more females there but not to the extent that I thought. And, a significant proportion of males used it as a chance to dress in full Peaky Blinders regalia.

Ok, it probably wasn’t the full outfit as the theatre had specified that we were not to bring imitation weapons which, presumably, meant that even a bit of tin foil wrapped around cardboard would not be permitted in the peak of the cap.

I had to fully admire the commitment as those who were sat near us persisted with the hat and the coat throughout the first half of the show despite the usual stifling British theatre temperatures where it’s also summer (assuming that by summer, you understand that we’re referring to summer on the sun).

I don’t know what they made of the show as we were chuckling a bit too much at the end to really take in what others thought. They may have enjoyed the brief bits of violence, the occasional flesh of legs, the use of the recorded narration that was both utterly necessary (because some parts of the plot were fairly unintelligible) and hilariously patronising (because some parts of the plot were blindly obvious) and the dancing itself.

When the dancing was trying to develop plot and character in the first half, the art took second place. When, at the start of the second half it was more about mood and expression, the dancing came to life.

Walking away from the theatre, I did what I usually do and kept my thoughts to myself. I’m not one to have loud conversations about what I did and didn’t like because people walking nearby don’t have option to avoid it (that said, I did enjoy one two word review from those passing near us, “Oh dear”). I like to think that people who have actively chosen to download a Beatles podcast might be expecting a little more.

But here’s the thing, it’s highly likely that the things that I enjoyed, bored others. And this reminded me that I had engaged with a Twitter user over the weekend about podcasts they may enjoy. I recommended Worst Foot Forward and the hosts (and also a collaborator on their worst Beatles song episode got involved). The original poster suggested his three worst Beatles songs which included one slightly controversial choice in the fandom and one extremely controversial choice. After I replied reasonably diplomatically, one of the hosts of Worst Foot Forward also engaged with the well meaning discussion.

And then comedy Twitter kicked in with its 90,000 followers, the combination of which, however well intended was the part of Twitter which is full of people who will tell you why your opinion is wrong, wrong, wrong joined in and proceeded to tell him why his opinion was very wrong, wrong, wrong.

And it’s such a shame. The suggestion that In My Life is one of the worst Beatles songs is his response to it. Beatles Twitter may be a generally warm and fuzzy place but I don’t think anyone really needs to be told that something they think about a song is wrong. It can’t be wrong. There are no objective criteria here. In our podcast we have a completely pointless scoring system and when I give my score at the end of an episode, I just try to rate my emotional response to the song and compare it to how I felt about others. Other emotional responses are available.

In full fairness to comedy Twitter, he must have realised what he started and then rolled back with a much more sensible “everyone is entitled to their controversial Beatles opinion and here’s mine”. Just remember though that Twitter doesn’t always like sensible.

I’m not sure what the lesson is here. Should I barrel out of a local Wetherspoons shouting about how something is by order of the Peaky Blinders as one person did before joining the theatre queue? Perhaps I should try to be more controversial in the hope it might get us a few more followers on Twitter and a few more listeners to the podcast.

Or maybe I’m just happy as I am.