a soon-to-be psychological thriller comic.thing yay!
SYNOPSIS
1966. After a near-fatal car accident, Paul McCartney wakes in a hospital with only partial memories of what happened. The official story is simple — he was lucky to survive. A few gaps, a bit of disorientation, nothing unusual.
Everything continues as it should.
The band visits. They joke. They carry on. Recording resumes. Interviews are scheduled. Life moves forward exactly as expected.
But something is… off.
Not enough to name. Not enough to prove. Just small things — hesitations where there shouldn’t be, memories that feel rehearsed rather than remembered, reactions that arrive a second too late. Moments that don’t quite belong to him.
Paul remembers his life. Liverpool. The music. His family. The rise of the band.
He remembers all of it.
Perfectly.
Behind the scenes, a truth exists that never reaches the public: Paul McCartney did not walk out of that accident unchanged. In the aftermath, a decision was made — one driven by pressure, by fear, by the impossibility of losing someone the world refuses to let go.
A replacement was found.
William Campbell.
A man chosen for how closely he could resemble Paul — and then reshaped into him. Not just in appearance, but in identity. Through intense psychological conditioning, memory implantation, and repetition, William is stripped down and rebuilt. Every memory drilled into him. Every habit learned. Every detail perfected until there is no distinction left.
He does not pretend to be Paul McCartney.
He believes he is.
The band knows. They all do. And they make a choice. to continue, to protect the illusion, To preserve what remains of what they had. They play their roles carefully, speaking around certain things, avoiding the past in ways that might fracture what has been constructed.
Because if he begins to question it — if even one crack forms — there is no guarantee he will hold together.
And yet, despite everything done to ensure perfection, something persists beneath the surface. Something that cannot be fully erased. A self that may still exist somewhere, buried under layers of someone else’s memories.
In a world where everyone insists he is Paul McCartney, what happens when he begins to doubt it himself?
And if he isn’t Paul, then who is he?
On meeting Sondheim, finding his own George, and directing As You Like It
It’s a pleasure this week to welcome Daniel Evans, Co-Artistic Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company, to The Sondheim Hub. Daniel is as steeped in Sondheim as he is in Shakespeare, winning Olivier Awards for his performances in Merrily We Roll Along and Sunday in the Park with George. As he prepares to direct Jonathan Groff in As You Like It at the RSC, we spoke about meeting Sondheim, finding his own George, what Sondheim and Shakespeare understand about form and meaning, and much more.
Evans: … I went to see Jonathan Groff in Merrily on Broadway, and saw Daniel Radcliffe playing the part I’d played — and that was surreal, because you’re seeing what’s in front of you and you’re also remembering your own experience. That makes for such a rich viewing.
You mentioned As You Like It, which opens at the RSC in September. I think there’s something really nice, by the way, about a Charley directing a Frank.
Ha!
Where are you in the creative process right now?
I’ve been wanting to do this production for a while, because it’s a play about a woman who dresses up as a man who pretends to be a woman — and of course it was originally done with all men, because women weren’t allowed on the English stage in the very late 16th century. This is a play from 1599. I’d been thinking about who Rosalind is, and I hadn’t quite found her until I saw Just in Time. I’d seen Jonathan in Merrily the year before, but there was something he did in Just in Time… It’s a show about Bobby Darin, and it was a complete and utter triumph for Jonathan. He rarely left the stage, he had this connection with the audience, he could turn on a dime so quickly. It seemed to me like his intellect and his technique are so together.
I’d actually met him after the show, but I didn’t mention anything because I was too shy. So I wrote to him about three days later and said, “This is a mad idea...” And he literally wrote back with the subject line reading, “Holy fucking shit.” So we Zoomed three days later, and he said yes. And since then, every Friday, we go through the play, we do Shakespeare, and we’ve done that for the last six months without fail. He’s always there. He’s a theatre actor through and through, even though he’s doing two films at the moment, back to back — the one with Lin-Manuel, and the one with Dan Radcliffe. But he gets it, and he’s curious, and he’s passionate, and he has deep insight into the emotional lives of characters and plays.
The theme I’m loving exploring in the play is that there are all different kinds of love. People identify in all kinds of different ways in the play, but there’s a sort of subliminal message that says: we change. We’re not the same people throughout life. Things come in. We sometimes surprise ourselves with who we fall in love with. And whether you’re gay or straight or bi, or however you identify, you go for it. That’s all well and good. And if that’s important to you, say so. But there’s this other, greater thing, which is love, and we can’t predict where love goes. And that, I hope, is the joy this production will bring this autumn.
And that feels as Sondheimian as it does Shakespearean, doesn’t it?
Well, I’m thinking about “Our Time” at the end of Merrily, and how there’s a kind of return to innocence. Or I’m thinking about Follies, and how it’s an analysis of regret — of how one didn’t live one’s life the way one could have done, had one keyed into who we really were. And Into the Woods is all about wants and desires, and those primal things we sometimes chase and then regret. And about eroticism, too, and the fear of the other. And of course those themes run all the way through As You Like It too.
going through my camera roll and finding all these screenshots help there’s so many of them GIRLLLLLL…. what was i going through during the 2025 Tony’s red carpet livestream like im………………. Wait let’s flip the script what were They making me go through.
Kind of just realized I never posted an intro lol..
I’m Mani!! I use the username certifiedeuphlover everywhere
I go by she/her and i am a minor
I am quite a social person and love talking to new people who have similar interests! I love all my friends very so much
I’ve been in Concert Band for 4 years and I also play the Euphonium which was followed by Trombone and Clarinet until I switched to Euphonium. I also can kind of play piano! I’m also in Theatre, yet i’m quite new to it.
Some of my interests are; MWRA (specifically the OBC), Follies, Ride The Cyclone The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, Little Shop of Horrors, Homestuck, Spring Awakening, GLEE and Descendants! 🥹 tats alot oops
Other things; I kind of enjoy composing my own songs VIA piano !
I am a Merrily We Roll Along OBC enthusiast.
I also like Little Night Music, Company, Sweeney Todd, and Bounce (i might like Sondheim)
I like Charles Kringas
I might mostly post stuff under the tags- #doodles #tomodachi living the dream- and more i can’t think of
Director and RSC Co-Artistic Director Daniel Evans and Tony Award-winner Jonathan Groff talk all things As You Like It. From remembering first experiences of Shakespeare, to how to pronounce 'Avon' and ramming goats!... Intrigued?
Daniel Evans directs an all-male cast in Shakespeare's glorious celebration of love in all its forms opening from 26 September, with Jonathan Groff making his RSC debut as Rosalind.
