With a chunk of the floorboard that John and Paul met on currently up for auction, it seems scrapings from the Beatles barrel finally have currency. So almost 20 years after the first instalment, the BBC archives have been scoured for any remaining usable takes from the 88 songs the Beatles recorded live between 1963 and 1965. Lacking any unreleased originals, leaning heavily on covers (most rarely Stephen Foster's Beautiful Dreamer and Chuck Berry's I'm Talking About You) and sounding ragged owing to the band recording up to 18 songs a day, the echoes of Hamburg and ramshackle takes on the classics here will thrill historians, but there's as much value in their Goon-like banter during the interspersed chats with various Cholmondley-Warners. While later interviews for Pop Profile explore George's Indian influences, John's class struggle and Paul's cinematic ambitions, the early snippets – largely fan mail sessions and Q&As about holidays and birthdays – are infused with barely suppressed cynicism and tongue-biting faux-cheeriness that illuminate the hollow heart of the hysteria.