Casting announced for new Beatles drama Hamburg Days as filming begins

Casting for Hamburg Days, a major new six-part drama charting The Beatles’ formative years has been announced with a first-look picture. Filming has begun on the series in Hamburg, Munich and Liverpool.

Produced by W&B Television and Turbine Studios, and co-financed by AGC Television and German broadcaster ZDF, Hamburg Days is inspired by German artist Klaus Voormann’s autobiography and explores the band’s early evolution in 1960s Hamburg. The BBC have acquired the series for BBC iPlayer and BBC One.

The much anticipated series stars Rhys Mannion (It Is In Us All, Freud’s Last Session) as John Lennon, Ellis Murphy as Paul McCartney, Harvey Brett as George Harrison, Louis Landau (Rivals, Kennedy) as Stu Sutcliffe, Patrick Gilmore as Pete Best, Luna Jordan (Wild Republic, Sleeping Dog) as Astrid Kirchherr, and Casper von Bülow (Druck, Wann wird es endlich wieder so, wie es nie war) as Klaus Voormann, and Laura Tonke (22 Lengths, Amrum) as Nielsa Kirchherr.

Hamburg Days is set in the 1960s, in the smoke-filled clubs of Hamburg’s St. Pauli red-light district, where an inexperienced young rock ‘n’ roll band from Liverpool collide with two young artists, Klaus Voormann and Astrid Kirchherr. Together they help spark a transformation that turns a scrappy group of teenagers into the greatest music phenomenon the world has ever known: The Beatles.

The series is developed by Benjamin Benedict (Generation War) and written by Jamie Carragher (Succession). Christian Schwochow (The Crown, Munich – The Edge of War) directs alongside Laura Lackmann (Call my Agent Berlin, The Pimp: No F***Ing Fairytale), with music curated by BAFTA-winning producer David Holmes (Killing Eve, Ocean’s franchise). Klaus Voormann serves as an exclusive consultant.

Executive producers are Benjamin Benedict, Quirin Berg and Max Wiedemann of W&B Television, Andrew Eaton and Justin Thomson of Turbine Studios and AGC’s Stuart Ford, Lourdes Diaz and Miguel A. Palos Jr. Isabel Haug and Katharina Haase serve as producers. At ZDF, the project is overseen by Alexandra Staib, Caroline von Senden und Sandra Dettki. The series production is supported by MOIN Film Fund Hamburg Schleswig-Holstein and FilmFernsehFonds Bayern.

AGC International will handle worldwide sales outside the UK and Germany.

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