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Review: ‘Ticket to Ride’ Beatles tribute at La Habra Depot Theatre

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‘Ticket to Ride,’ a tribute show to the Beatles that’s currently playing at the La Habra Depot Theatre, features performances of 23 hit songs by the legendary rock group. There’s not much else to this likable but rather crudely assembled production. The show’s creators know that when it comes to Beatles simulacrum, it’s the music that counts, not the story arc.

Leaping from one high point to another, the show begins with the group’s discovery in a Liverpool club by recording executive Brian Epstein (Greg Wilmot), who serves as our narrator. Then it’s off to America, where the Beatles appear on ‘The Ed Sullivan Show’ and perform at Shea Stadium. The second act charts the band’s hippie years and ends with a performance of ‘Imagine’ by John Lennon (Gilbert Bonilla).

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With no virtually plot to speak of, the show allows us to focus on the Beatles’ evolving musical style, not to mention decades of bad hair. The performers offer uncanny impersonations of the band members. Paul McCartney (Frank Mendonca III, sharing the role with Benny Chadwick) gets to perform a few solo numbers. Ringo Starr (Louis Renteria) is mostly confined to the drum set, while George Harrison (Omar Oliveras) also recedes into the background.

There are great swaths of Beatles history missing here. (No Yoko Ono, for one thing.) But the show, written by P.M. Howard, who once played Harrison in ‘Beatlemania,’ delivers where it matters, which is to say that the hits keep coming.

— David Ng

‘Ticket to Ride,’ La Habra Depot Theatre, 311 S. Euclid St., La Habra. 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays; 5 p.m. Sundays. Ends May 3. $20. (562) 905-9625 or www.lhdepottheatre.org. Running time: 2 hours.

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