Long-lost film footage of The Beatles playing on the BBC’s Top Of The Pops has reportedly been found and will be restored.
The band appeared on the iconic show on 19 March 1964 to record performances of ‘Can’t Buy Me Love’ and ‘You Can’t Do That’, the A-side and B-side of a single released the following day which went on to become their fourth UK Number One.
Like many early episodes of Top Of The Pops, however, the footage was not preserved by the BBC and it has not been seen for decades.
Now, the film preservation group Film Is Fabulous have said that they were presented with a 35mm BBC negative of the performance at the recent British Film Collectors’ Convention in Surrey.
They claim the family of a deceased former industry professional passed the precious film to them, and they will work to restore the footage and return it to the BBC Archives. “Discussions will also be held with other parts of the corporation to ensure the content is made available to a wide audience,” Film Is Fabulous wrote on Facebook.
The Beatles on ToTPs
Film is Fabulous! is delighted to confirm the 35mm negative presented to John Franklin at the recent film convention in Oxted, contains the The Beatles first appearance on Top of the Tops. pic.twitter.com/hPvOjqPR8u
— filmisfabulous (@filmisfabulous) June 18, 2026
Describing the footage, the group said: “Recorded on the 19th March 1964, at the BBC’s Television Theatre (since renamed The Shepherd’s Bush Empire), in London, the inserts beautifully captured the Fab Four at the height of Beatlemania.”
“Passages of the recording show the studio, the technicians, and the make-up ladies. There were four takes of the first song, ‘Can’t Buy Me Love’, with two being aborted because of technical errors. During breaks, the Beatles openly joked, and could be seen dancing to amuse themselves.”
They added: “The other song, ‘You Can’t Do That’, had two takes. During the second of these recordings John Lennon pulled a funny face when the camera came in for a ‘close-up’. It’s an amusing piece of Beatle history.”
The BBC routinely wiped and reused tapes during the 1960s, resulting in the loss of countless episodes of many of their most popular shows, including Top Of The Pops. If successfully restored, this would be the oldest surviving footage of the Fab Four on the show.
In other Beatles news, June 25 is set to be Global Beatles Day, commemorating the day in 1967 when the four band members recorded the international satellite TV broadcast of ‘All You Need Is Love’.
The Beatles and Apple Corps Ltd will be launching online and in-person events around the world to celebrate the band, while a colourised version of the broadcast will also be released for the first time.
The Fab Four are also going to be the subject of a four-film series by Sam Mendes, slated for a simultaneous release in April 2028. Set to star Paul Mescal as Paul McCartney, Harris Dickinson as John Lennon, Joseph Quinn as George Harrison, and Barry Keoghan as Ringo Starr, each film will tell the story of the band from a different member’s point of view.
McCartney dropped his new album ‘The Boys of Dungeon Lane‘ last month, which featured his first ever duet with Starr on ‘Home To Us’. McCartney sat down with NME to look forwards and back on his extraordinary career, share his “excitement” at contributing to the new The Rolling Stones album, and also reveal if he has plans to retire.
