I have been to London countless times, even working here for a spell too, but having never visited the National Portrait Gallery it was going to take something quite different to get me interested. Don’t get me wrong I love art, but the draw of the larger galleries always got me first, so of course it could only be a Beatle that finally got me across the threshold.

It was worth the visit too, as Paul McCartney’s latest exhibition is without exaggeration, a bit special.

In 2020, a trove of just shy of 1,000 photographs, taken by McCartney, on a 35mm camera was unearthed in his personal archive. Revived and reprinted they serve now as a found treasure, a record of Beatlemania, seen through the eyes, and the camera lens, of one of the band – The images are as striking and iconic as you would imagine they would be.

Keeping distinguished company among portraits of some of the most well-known people of our time, King Charles, David Bowie and Barrack Obama to name a few, nobody can dispute the draw the Beatles still have. The exhibition, situated immediately inside the gallery, is packed with Beatle fans, young and old.

Many are sporting Beatle t-shirts and badges, the exhibition serving as a pilgrimage of sorts, and the accents are diverse, there is a Boston drawl, German, Scandinavian and, with my involvement, some Welsh too, everyone united by the universal language of the Beatles.

Many of the first batches of photographs, negatives long lost, are printed straight from the contact sheets. A faint white x on each of the ones Paul must have liked back in the early sixties appear on the enlarged prints as well, nothing is changed here, no cropping just raw images, as an archive they are untouched, just freshly presented for us to walk around and enjoy.

Room after room reveals real treasure. On entry we are greeted by individual shots of the four Beatles under an arch and a candid ‘selfie’ of Paul to introduce the collection. There are walls filled with behind-the-scenes shots from British tours and the Christmas shows, as well as Paris, at home with the McCartney’s in Liverpool and the Ashers in London, not to mention guest photos from well-known Beatle photographers such as Dezo Hoffman too.

As we move into the centre room, a video plays of the Beatles first American press conference, with I want to Hold your Hand, having just got them to the top of the US Charts, the actual handwritten lyrics for the song are sitting in a cabinet mere feet away, it’s like a visit to see Rock and Roll’s crown jewels.

That press conference is full of laughter, and a testament to how the exhibition is laid out is that from the quiet of those initial behind-the-scenes photographs, we can now feel the excitement of Beatlemania build as we walk through these rooms.

To the right of the press conference video, we are treated to shots on the plane before it touches down, there is John, Brian, Cynthia and a sleeping George, marked of course with the white of Paul’s chinagraph pen to indicate that it was a keeper.

To the left Paul captures the ground staff and the journalists on the tarmac, every shot is full of joy, cameras flashing, pens at the ready and even a ground worker mockingly playing the guitar to the amusement of his colleagues and no doubt Paul, who picked him out with his trusty 35mm camera.

That theme continues and we see motorways and motorcades, photographs that Paul shot from the back of the band’s transportation. There are people of all ages, all are smiling or waving back, all seem to know the significance of being there and all showing us that the Beatles’ arrival in America was the event we all know it was.

Within those images we are also treated to a snapshot in time, the fashions, the cars, the advertising hoardings for Miller and Hertz, cinemas and theatres and snack stands, it feels like as good a slice of Americana in that era as any I have seen before, and it’s clear as we advance that Paul’s skills as a photographer had, forgive the pun, continued to develop.

As we enter the final room and the tour hits Miami, we are transported Oz-like into wonderful technicolour. The walls are painted blue to match the skies captured as Paul changes his black and white film out for colour, and it is a real treat for the senses.

The walls are adorned with what are essentially holiday snaps, Paul fishing, John diving in the pool, and George sipping a rum and coke, it’s a moment of normality away from the chaos of the mania they were now used to, the four Beatles having taken a well-earned holiday. As we reach the very last room, we get one final surprise, a treat for the ears as well as the eyes as a McCartney directed and scored film of Miami plays, looking as crisp as if shot yesterday but with gallons of added sixties cool.

It is a fitting end to the exhibition that started with the Beatles straddling those darker post-war years shown in moody monochrome, now mixed with the bold colours of Miami, their place at the top of the pile now firmly set and the new optimism of the sixties in full swing.

Paul and his collaborators have scored a win with this exhibition, it really does bring something new for fans and serves as a fitting time capsule of Beatle-life, it only makes you wonder what else might be lurking in unexplored corners of the MPL archives, let’s hope that there are more treasures for us to enjoy in the coming years, because this exhibition was simply FAB.

The Paul McCartney, Eyes of the Storm exhibition runs at the National Portrait Gallery, London, until October 2^nd 2023. If rumours overheard at the show are to be believed, it will also go on tour in both the US and Japan after this run. For those who can’t wait that long but also can’t get to London either, the book ‘1964: Eyes of the Storm’, which features many of the photos on display is available at all good bookshops and some bad ones right now.