Following is a short film on the recreation of the Mister Kite poster and the history of the Man behind the circus - I hope you enjoy:
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A short film following the recreation of the Pablo Fanque circus poster that inspired John Lennon to write 'Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite' for the Beatles album 'Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band'. Using the traditional methods of wood engraving and letterpress printing, Peter Dean and his team of experts bring to life Lennon's poster. See the finished poster here: www.kiteprint.com
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John bought the poster in an antiques shop and hung it in his music room. While writing for Sgt. Pepper one day, he and Paul McCartney drew inspiration from the quirky, old-fashioned language and set the words to music. Most of the song's lyrics came straight from this old circus poster!
On 31 January that year, John Lennon walked into a Sevenoaks antique shop where a poster advertising a February 1843 benefit for Mr Kite — "celebrated somerset thrower, wire dancers, vaulter, rider etc etc", pictured balancing on his head on a 12-foot-tall pole, playing a trumpet, of course — by Pablo Fanque's Circus Royal caught his eye.
Lennon bought the poster, took it home, put it above his piano and, a little over two weeks later, he'd written what he insisted was correctly called Being for the Benefit of Mr Kite.
"Everything in the song is from the poster," Lennon later said. "Except the horse wasn't called Henry, it was called Zanthus."
Before the start of the first take, Lennon sings the words "For the benefit of Mr. Kite!" in a joke accent, then Emerick announces, "For the Benefit of Mr. Kite! This is take 1." Lennon immediately responds, "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!", reinforcing his title preference from a phrase lifted intact from the original poster.
