The idea of a Beatles musical has been close to the hearts of millions ever since John Lennon first sang Love Me Do. Well, love him they did and love him they will again thanks largely to the relentless creativity of Julie Taymor, the audacious director of The Lion King. Merging that musical success with the surreal vision of her earlier work, Across The Universe is an acid-tinged history lesson cum love-story tied to a Fab Four sing-along soundtrack. How far you’ll want to travel across this particular universe depends largely on your enthusiasm for The Beatles, and your patience with unrepentant whimsy.

Wide-eyed Jude makes his way from Liverpool to New York where he meets Max, Lucy, Prudence, Rita, Sadie, Jo-Jo and drops into a world of urgent social change. As he falls in and out of love, the soundtrack keeps time with the rise and fall of innocence in an era that grows wiser, and more cynical. The whiff of cheese is never far away, yet Taymor seldom misses a beat. Wise to the greater story she happily winks at the audience, employs cameos by Joe Cocker and Bono then engages music in unexpected ways. Let It Be becomes an anthem to the Detroit riots, I Want to Hold Your Hand is a song of unrequited lesbian love.

From an impressive opener to the show-stopping Strawberry Fields Forever, Across The Universe barely stops for reflection. When it does, Taymor sets the production spinning on its axis as cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel (Amelie) urgently recreates a psychedelic America that sets heads reeling. Rounding out with an inevitable finale, Jude learns that not everything is being for the benefit of Mr Kite. Across The Universe is, ultimately, a toe-tapping exercise in style over substance. But what style!

// COLIN FRASER