© Words Matteo Sedazzari

Last November 2013 saw the publication of a unique graphic novel, The Fifth Beatle: The Brian Epstein Story (Dark Horse Comics) written by Vivek Tiwary and illustrated by graphic and comic illustrators Kyle Baker and Andrew C Robinson, seasoned professionals with an impressive CV who have worked with the likes of comic heavyweight publishers, DC and Marvel comics. The artwork within the novel certainly shows Baker and Robinson’s pedigree, experience, creativity and imagination, with the story written by Broadway theatre producer, Vivek Tiwary, a native New Yorker, whose productions have already earned him 25 Tony Awards, the highest award possible for a Broadway production. Tiwary has perhaps produced the first American punk rock opera Green Day’s American Idiot as well as The Addams Family, and many more.

The story of The Beatles is a beautiful story yet mixed with sadness (the death of original member Stu Sutcliffe (who had left The Beatles prior to his demise), the sacking of original drummer Pete Best) and triumphs, I don’t think examples are really necessary do you? It is beyond a rag to riches story; The Beatles did change the world of music, as well as changing post war ideology and helped to give the British working class, epically the youth, a voice and self-belief as well as producing amazing music. However The Beatles’ own story takes a supporting role in The Fifth Beatle, as the story focuses on the title ‘Brian Epstein’ and his life.

As the story goes, Epstein first saw The Beatles on the cover of a local music magazine, The Mersey Beat, and became curious after many of the hip kids from Liverpool went into his family owned business NEMS (North End Music Store), which sold records and musical instruments, asking for Tony Sheridan and The Beatles’ My Bonnie single in 1961.  Discovering that The Beatles had a residency down The Cavern, Epstein decided to venture out one night to see what all the fuss was about and as we know, the rest is history.  That fateful night was to change Brian’s life forever, as he saw the future in terms of music.  He believed in them, and put his heart and soul into getting them signed. It wasn’t Paul or John making the long and expensive train trips to London from Liverpool, only to face rejection upon rejection, like Dick Rowe from Decca Records informing Brian “guitar groups are on their way out, Mr. Epstein”, although Rowe did redeem himself by signing The Rolling Stones. Brian Epstein’s belief and dedication to The Beatles was overwhelming.  By all accounts it was his passion that drove him, the financial rewards seemed to come second. 

I have had the pleasure of interviewing  two people  who knew Brian Epstein well.  Original Beatles drummer Pete Best and fellow Merseyside musician Billy J Kramer (who was also managed by Epstein in the sixties).  Both spoke highly and with much fondness of Epstein. Even though Best was fired by Epstein from The Beatles, which was the band’s wish not Epstein’s, he tried to help Best as much as he could to have a successful career in music. In regard to The Fifth Beatle, the sacking of Best is not featured in the graphic novel, which is recognised by the author Vivek Tiwary in the foreword of the book as The Fifth Beatle tries to present a unique and often overlooked account of Epstein’s life, and the story of Best’s sacking is well known worldwide.  Even when I interviewed Pete Best we joked about it being an obvious question, and Best stated there was more to his life than 16th August 1962, the day he was sacked, and the same certainly applied to Epstein.

The Fifth Beatle starts off dark, like a modern day Batman comic, with the dockland back streets of Liverpool and Epstein looking for a sexual encounter with another male. Being a homosexual was not publically acceptable; it was against the law until 1967, the year of his death. Therefore Epstein spent his entire life having sexual preferences that were illegal, as well as managing the biggest band in the world.  That is certainly pressure.  Similar to The Dark Knight, the opening is brutal and Epstein is beaten and mugged by a male preying on gay men looking for action, knowing full well that the chances of the attack will not be reported, as the focus from the boys in the blue is on the victim’s desires and not the pain they have received. Like a superhero’s origin, the debilitated Epstein searches for meaning in his life and flashbacks of his life run through the novel, such as the brutality he faced whilst doing National Service, and being rejected as a dress designer. Then, as mentioned, he discovers The Beatles and the illustration in the Fifth Beatle of Epstein’s epitome is pure pop art and gives the reader a sense of a new beginning and strength, on a par with Peter Parker being bitten by a radioactive spider, which leads him to become the friendly neighbour Spiderman.

Mixing two great art forms to come out of post war US and the UK, American superhero comics and British beat music, The Fifth Beatle is a page turner, even though most people know the story of Epstein, it has never been presented in such a colourful and original way. And as for Epstein, it is wonderful  to see him being shown as a dreamer whose dreams came true, and not the bad manager that the media for so long has mocked. I wonder if those writers, in their ivory towers, would have had the guts to pound the streets of London with Epstein’s belief, or dealt with the first ever world tour of a band?  Brian Epstein paved the way for managers like Peter Grant, Malcolm McLaren, Jon Landau and many more.



As a fan of both American comics and The Beatles, I love this book and I was intrigued by the author Vivek Tiwary, a first generation Indian, from New York who produces successful Broadway musicals, and what made him want to write about a man who he never met, from across the Atlantic and managed a band which broke up before he was born.  So, without having sleepless nights, I thought the only way to answer my questions was to interview Vivek on the phone at his office in New York, (the first US city where The Beatles landed in February 1964). 

ZANI - Well done on getting to number one in the New York graphic novel charts, which is parallel to the success of the subject matter of the book, Epstein and The Beatles getting to number one. I bet you are pleased?  

Vivek Tiwary – I couldn’t be happier, this project has been a real labour of love for me. I have been researching the Brian Epstein story for literally 21 years. I turned 40 this year, so I can say I have been working on it for more than half of my life.  Brian’s story is such that I call him my historical mentor, meaning somebody that I never had a chance to meet, but whose life I’ve looked to learn from. I find his story totally inspiring and totally unsung.
Brian certainly had flaws, he wasn’t perfect in a lot of ways, but he was also a hero. So to see him at the top of the graphic novel charts, and underneath him is The Walking Dead, Superman and Batman. I hope he would be a little amazed but also rather pleased.

ZANI - Before we discuss The Fifth Beatle, please tell ZANI readers a little about yourself.  It seems that the Broadway theatre is your background.

Vivek Tiwary – That is my primary background, but going all the way back to the source, I got my start in the music industry; I went to business school, The Wharton School of Business, Philadelphia. I graduated in 1996. Whilst I was there I started studying Brian Epstein’s life, I was also working for Sony Music, as a marketing rep.  After I graduated I moved back to New York, which is home, and I was working for Mercury records, which is a division of Polygram.  I was there for about three years.  When Seagrams bought Polygram and merged it with Universal Music that is when I left and I started my own company.  Growing up in New York, I was surrounded by the arts, not just music, Broadway, Opera, and Ballet.  I grew up loving it all,  with the bizarre duality of my parents taking me up town, appreciating Broadway and New York City Opera and then, when I was let out of the house, I was going downtown to punk rock concerts and experimental theatre. 

So when I started my own company, coming out of the music industry, I knew I wanted to do more than just traditional musical industry stuff, I knew I wanted to produce musical theatre and eventually film and television.  I grew up reading comics, so I knew I would also want to do graphic novels. So the company was set up to do all these things, historically we started doing theatre, and started doing it very well. So theatre did become the backbone of the company, however, if you go all the way back I really did get my start in the music industry and you will notice that all of my projects have some music core to them.  Even A Raisin in the Sun, which is not a musical, however I cast Sean “P. Diddy” Combs as a male lead. My next theatre project is a musical of Alanis Morissette’s album A Jagged Little Pill. 

ZANI – Love that album especially You Ought to Know and Ironic. Which graphic novel and comic heroes inspired you?

Vivek Tiwary – I started as a little kid reading Disney Comics which my father loved.  When I came into my own, I was born in 1973, I was a Marvel kid growing up.  I particularly loved the families, meaning the groups, I was a huge X Men fan, huge Fantastic Four fan, liked The Avengers, but prefer The X Men and The Fantastic Four as they were more solid, and The Avengers were always changing. Then when I got a little older, I became a huge fan of the Mirage run of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the original wasn’t incredibly adult, but it was violent, it wasn’t a kids comic, let’s put it that way.  Then coming back to comics in a slightly more adult way, through Frank Miller and Alan Moore, like Dark Knight Returns, those books changed my life, then Sandman blew open the doors of what comic books could be. 

ZANI - And music?  I take it you are a huge Beatles fan, and other music you like?

Vivek Tiwary – I pretty much listen to everything.  I have a passion for music, I am a musical omnivore.   When researching and writing The Fifth Beatle, obviously  I was listening to The Beatles for inspiration but I was also listening  to a lot of other stuff, like Bauhaus.  When I was reading back the opening sequence to The Fifth Beatle, the song in my mind to go with that was  “All We Ever Wanted Was Everything” by Bauhaus.  In the afterword of any edition of The Fifth Beatle there is the La’s  reference and in the collector’s edition there is an art gallery section, the title of that is “The past was yours, but the future's mine” which is a Stone Roses’ reference. They are two of my favourite bands, as well as The Cure, I’m also a huge Sex Pistols fan. The Pistols often made sarcastic references to The Beatles, but there are a lot of similarities between those groups although The Pistols would hate to admit it.

ZANI – I think it will be a cold day in hell, before Steve Jones of The Pistols admits to that.  Why did you choose Brian Epstein?  You did briefly cover that at the start of the interview, that he is an historical role model.  

Vivek Tiwary – I talked about him being a role model, but the reason why he is a role model may not be as intuitive as you think.  I discovered the story when I was at business school and the reason why I wanted to learn about him was for business reasons.  How he came up with the suits, the bows, basically how he packaged the band. How he convinced a record label to sign them, when no one wanted to sign them, how he convinced Ed Sullivan to book them, when no one wanted to book them. How he was different in management style compared to Colonel Parker (Elvis Presley’s manager).  Those were the things I was really after. It’s a great story and a very inspiring business story.

However, it was the human side of his story which I knew nothing about when I was beginning my research, which struck a chord with me.  In brief, he was gay in a period when literally it was against the law; he was Jewish in a period where there was a tremendous amount of anti-Semitism, and he was from Liverpool, at a time when Liverpool had no cultural influence.  There were and still are two very important football clubs from Liverpool, outside of football, there was nothing cultural about the city.  I am not being rude about Liverpool, but if you told someone from there in 1961, ‘62 or ‘63 that one day Liverpool would be voted capital of culture they would have laughed at you.

ZANI – Very true and good points.  In addition, as everyone knew Epstein was an homosexual  (the best kept secret) and still illegal, maybe his success with the Beatles helped to change the law and people’s view on homosexuality.

Vivek Tiwary - I like to think so, it’s hard to say exactly how. It may have been a part of it; many things were part of it. It’s taken a long time to be accepted, homosexuality may have been legalised when Epstein died in 1967, but it wasn’t as soon as it was legal that it became acceptable. It was still decades before it became acceptable, and when it became acceptable it took another decade before it became OK to talk about it.




ZANI – Many make claim to the title of the Fifth Beatle, producer George Martin, American DJ Murray The K (that by his own admission) and their press officer Derek Taylor. Did you want to cover their importance to The Beatles in the book, or was it purely about Brian?

Vivek Tiwary – The book is really about Brian.   Going back to being gay and Jewish and the coming from Liverpool thing, I have never, or claimed to have, the kind of obstacles that Brian had. Compared to Brian, my life has been fairly charmed, however I can still relate to Brian. I am first generation American, my parents are from Guyana, South America and their parents are from India, and you just don’t see a lot of people of Indian origin working on Broadway, graphic novels etc. I am not the only one, but we are a rare breed. I still feel a little bit of an outsider, a little bit of a misfit and to overcome that and have such a big dream like Brian had, such as pop music is going to be elevated to an art form; The Beatles are going to bigger than Elvis, that kind of a dream, from someone who isn’t supposed to work in this field.  “People like you don’t do these sort of things”. For him to still chase a dream that was so big, bold and worthy and accomplished it, so for a young Indian kid who wanted to write graphic novels and produce on Broadway, that was terribly inspiring.

But that’s not to say that Derek Taylor and George Martin don’t also have great stories and were important  to The Beatles, but for me, it’s all about Brian, and if Paul McCartney says he was the fifth Beatle, that’s good enough for me. 

ZANI - Fair enough. A lot of people knock Epstein for certain bad deals, like the merchandise, but he was the first to deal with a band of that magnitude, apart from Elvis and Colonel Parker, and Parker never took Elvis to England in the late 50’s. So he was the first to do large world tours. The fifties rock and roll stars played across the US and came over to the UK but not on the scale of The Beatles. You also mentioned the deal he did with Ed Sullivan that changed pop music forever and granted them huge success in the US. And he was shrewd in getting Love Me Do high in the charts 

Vivek Tiwary – He did everything he could.  He owned a record store, and they bought a lot of Beatle records to get those early numbers up.  He got his family, his friends and staff members to call the radio stations up.  In those days that was clever, today that is the standard state of affairs in the music industry.  But Brian was inventing these things as he went along. People go on about he messed about with The Beatles’ merchandising, he was getting 10 per cent when he should have been getting 90 per cent.  But the reality of the situation was no one had done merchandising before. If bands made tee shirts, it was promotional; no one thought you could make money out of it. You have to put these things into perspective. 

ZANI - Brian’s influence on The Beatles, he seemed to love The Beatles, more than the money side. "Brian told them who they could be and helped them become it.  If Brian had loved himself as much as he loved the Beatles he may still have been with us today." As quoted by Andrew Loog Oldham

Vivek Tiwary – I don’t tend to dwell on ifs; and I don’t necessarily agree if he would still be with us today.  But there is no question if Brian had taken better care of himself he would have been a happier person. Would he have lived longer? Would he have kept The Beatles together? Who knows? But he definitely wouldn’t have had the struggles that he faced; there is no question about that.  When I say that Brian is my historical mentor, I choose that phrase very carefully, this is going to sound really nerdy of me, I do see him as a mentor, not talking about being a fan.

Being a fan implies a certain amount of unconditional love;  I am a fan of many things, like The Beatles. But when it comes to Brian, I look at it to learn, not just learn what to do but to learn what not to do.  I feel that Brian didn’t take a step back to celebrate his accomplishments, and I think that is wrapped up in Andrew Loog Oldham’s comments about Brian not loving himself as much as The Beatles.

Brian said, The Beatles can evaluate pop music to an art form, John and Paul can write songs that will stand the test of time, will be considered amongst the great classical composers. But he never took the step back to say look at what I’ve done, and I am also somebody worthy of singing songs and writing books about.  I think if he had done that he might have lived a little easier. The thing is that Brian could have made more time for the love surrounding him.  Again, I don’t have the obstacles he had but one of the things I have tried to do with my life is to try and spend a lot of time with my family.  No matter how much I love what I do for a living, and I do, I am very blessed to work in the field in which I work. 

ZANI – Good point.  The illustrators of The Fifth Beatle, Andrew Robinson and Kyle Baker, have certainly produced a good body of work, will you be working with them again?

Vivek Tiwary – They were amazing, and at this moment in time we have no plans to do anything together yet, but we’ve had a wonderful experience and it’s been well received. I can’t speak for them, but I can for myself, I would love to do something with them again. We have become friends throughout  the process so I hope they will say the same thing. I do have a few other graphic novel ideas, but right now we are focusing on this and for me personally I am focusing on getting the film off the ground. 

ZANI - Yes The Fifth Beatle is now going to be a film and you have the rights to The Beatles music, nice touch, any idea who will be cast?

Vivek Tiwary –  Very proud about obtaining the rights to the music.  Peyton Reed announced in December 2013  that he will be directing the film.  His vision for the piece is very much along the lines of my vision.  He is a huge fan of the graphic novel so I can say to the graphic novel fans out there that Peyton is going to make us very proud.   We intend to start casting right now, and we are getting attention from some very interesting actors. Hope it won’t be too long before I announce the casting and that is the next step. Music rights are in place, have a script, which I am making some changes on.  We are looking to shoot mid to late this year.



ZANI – Will you be filming in England?

Vivek Tiwary – That is the plan, to shoot in Liverpool and London.   Some of the novel is set in New York, like Central Park and the Plaza Hotel, I would love to have the budget to shoot in all three cities, but it will be in England, and the New York scenes can be filmed in a studio.  Although I am one of those people that can tell when somewhere is not Central Park, but there are nooks and crannies in Hampstead Heath that could double up for Central Park.  We don’t have a shooting schedule yet, so that could change. But let me be very specific, my steadfast goal for both business and karmic reasons is to shoot this in London and Liverpool, and honestly I can’t see any reason why we shouldn’t. There are wonderful tax credits, a Northern fund, so there are great business reasons to do it, as well as great creative reasons.

ZANI - I am looking forward to it.  Final question, which Beatles song do you feel represents you the best and why?

Vivek Tiwary – Represents me the best?

ZANI – Yes.

Vivek Tiwary – Gosh that is a really interesting question, I usually get asked my favourite Beatle’s song,  not the song that represents me the best. (Long Pause), I Get By With a Little Help from My Friends; because I wouldn’t be able to do the things that I do without  the help and support of my friends and my family. 

Vivek Tiwary certainly means it.  Furthermore, 2014 looks a good year for him and the memory of Brian Epstein.  Moreover, in a modern culture, laced with cynicism and negativity, it is wonderful that Epstein’s story of achievement and positive thinking is being told, and from this new creativity ideas may flourish.  Because we do need them, as the only thing that is moving forward is technology.  As much as we all love our smart phones, TVs and tablets, but no human touch. Yes, The Beatles’ story is of yesteryear but the foundation is still very much relevant today, finding your voice, belief and talent, in whatever field, and pushing it. Maybe I am a dreamer but I am not the only one (sorry couldn’t resist a John Lennon lyric; yes I know it’s not from a Beatles song).

As stated by Tiwary we can learn from Epstein’s mistakes and successes.  Please note, if it wasn’t for Epstein, Vox Amps may not have flourished, for it was he who asked a struggling company in Dartford, Kent (Vox) for an up-and-coming band to use their amps free of charge, Vox took a gamble and their amplifiers are now part of rock ‘n’ roll history. That was Epstein’s vision.

And as for Vivek Tiwary, he is a charming, intelligent, passionate and warm individual; certainly hard working and an acute, tough and visionary businessman. Only just turned 40, and with an impressive track record on Broadway and a runaway success with his debut graphic novel, he is going to be around for a long time.  At ZANI we wish him well, and look forward to the film of The Fifth Beatle, Jagged Little Pill the musical and much more to come no doubt.

The Fifth Beatle: The Brian Epstein Story Official Site