'Yesterday' offers a world where there's no Beatles

In 'Yesterday', Himesh Patel (left) plays a young musician who wakes up in a world where The Beatles does not exist. Singer Ed Sheeran plays himself in the film. Photo: Universal Pictures

Imagine there’s no Beatles. It’s easy if you try – even easier if you see Yesterday, a flight of pop culture fancy from Trainspotting and Slumdog Millionaire director Danny Boyle and Four Weddings And A Funeral screenwriter Richard Curtis, opening on June 27.

As the film’s trailer has telegraphed, Yesterday posits a world without the Fab Four, without Beatlemania and, most disconcertingly, without I Want To Hold Your Hand, She Loves You, Strawberry Fields Forever, Revolution, Let It Be, Something or The Long And Winding Road.