Image source, Jeff Spicer/Getty Images

Screenwriter Richard Curtis and his wife Emma Freud are looking to bring the movie Yesterday on to the theatre stage

ByMariam Issimdar

Film producer Emma Freud has confirmed The Beatles have agreed for their songs to feature in a stage version of the movie, Yesterday.

Freud is working on the show with her husband, Richard Curtis. They were behind the 2019 film and other box office hits, including Love Actually and Bridget Jones's Diary.

She called it "a huge deal", saying: "They've [The Beatles] never done that with a West End musical before. So it's the first time that you can kind of legally see The Beatles' music on stage, which is amazing."

Freud spoke to BBC Radio Suffolk on Monday, after she received an honorary doctorate for her work in film and broadcasting at the University of Suffolk on Saturday.

Image source, University of Suffolk

Emma Freud received an honorary doctorate in Ipswich on Saturday

She said a theatre where the stage show will be performed had been chosen - "but I can't tell you what it is because I will get killed".

She confirmed the stage version of Yesterday would also be directed by Oscar-winner Danny Boyle, who oversaw the movie.

Freud said: "We're at workshop stages, so we've already had two workshops and we've got a third one coming up this month, where you sort of ask actors to come into a room and just interrogate the script and the songs and the staging, and see how it's going to work.

"Currently we're on the 11th draft of the script, because it isn't just taking a movie script and putting it on to a stage.

"It's the same story, but actually every beat of it becomes different, becomes theatrical rather than filmic.

"So it's been an incredible process to be a part of. I don't feel like I've ever done anything as big in my entire life."

The Beatles were one of the biggest bands on the planet, with a multitude of hits including Hey Jude, Let it Be and Yesterday

Yesterday is about a struggling musician who wakes up one day to find an altered world where no-one has heard of The Beatles.

He becomes famous after singing their songs and passing them off as his own.

The film stars Himesh Patel and Lily James, along with Suffolk-based singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran.

It was shot throughout Suffolk, Essex and Norfolk, including a scene with 6,000 extras in Gorleston-on-Sea.

Richard Curtis with the lead actor in the film Yesterday, Himesh Patel

On receiving her doctorate from the University of Suffolk, Freud said "the honour" was "so massive", because "Suffolk is my home and it's where I was brought up, and it's where my family has lived for generations".

Her family arrived in the county as Jewish refugees from Germany in the 1930s, escaping the tyranny of the Nazis.

Freud's work has also involved tackling poverty and inequality, and has included working as a creative director and executive producer at Comic Relief, external.

Image source, University of Suffolk

Emma Freud, who lives in Southwold with Richard Curtis, said receiving the accolade from the University of Suffolk was special

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