The Beatles, Harold Wilson & Me with Alan Johnson in Shoreham

On a short tour, he takes in the Ropetackle Arts Centre, Shoreham on Monday, February 23; Chequer Mead Theatre, East Grinstead on Wednesday, February 25; and Cranleigh Arts Centre on Thursday, February 26.

Alan will be taking us back to the 60s, exploring his admiration for Wilson and his love for The Beatles.

In the show Alan tells his extraordinary personal story, from growing up in a West London slum to walking the corridors of power. Along the way, he reveals the surprising ways his life intersected with both The Beatles and his political hero Harold Wilson, and how these cultural and political giants helped shape his outlook and values.

“It is about the 1960s. I was coming into my teens. I was 14 when Harold Wilson won a narrow majority and when The Beatles conquered America.

“The Beatles changed the world and they changed my life. I was listening to music before that but it was transatlantic and if you listened to English pop stars then they were Elvis tribute acts like Marty Wilde or Cliff Richard and then suddenly you've got these two guys from Liverpool writing these incredible songs. I wanted to look like Paul McCartney. I wanted a Beatles haircut. It was so exciting, and then when they conquered America there was a patriotic feeling. There they were, The Beatles at number 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 in the Billboard 100. They stormed America and many people would say that they helped America recover from the assassination of JFK. They went over and cheered people up.”

As for Harold Wilson, Prime Minister for much of the 1960s, Alan argues: “I don't think any Prime Minister added more to the sum of human happiness than Wilson did.”

Alan cites innovations including the introduction of the no fault divorce, the legalisation of homosexuality, crucial developments which helped so many people.

“Harold Wilson was the master of all the political arts. He won four elections which is equalled only by Gladstone in the 19th century and he won a European referendum which was not equalled by David Cameron! People will say that he was Machiavellian but all politicians could learn from Machiavelli. It's about holding your party together and making sure that the electorate is with you. And he had some big figures in his cabinet like Jenkins and Healy and Foot and he managed those figures. And from the late 60s he was becoming more and more wedded to the thought that we should join the European Union just as his party was going in the opposite direction.

“He was a great speaker and he was a great debater and he had probably the finest brain of any prime minister we have ever had. He was a prodigy. He was the brightest student of his generation and he worked for William Beveridge (British economist and Liberal politician). Wilson was recommended as the brightest mind they had ever seen.”

As for his reputation now: “He was a successful Labour prime minister and there are always knives out for any successful Labour prime ministers predictably from a predominantly Tory press.”

He also had his internal struggles with the party left and the party right: “But we have never had a more equal society than we had in the Wilson nears. He believed in cooperation. He believed in council housing and he believed in mutual banks.”

So much of which, as Alan says, was swept away in 1979 and the years that followed…