Forty-four years ago, a rumour swept Oxford that The Beatles were due to play at the New Theatre. I asked my mother to enquire (I was 12). "No, we don't know how this started, but the Everly Brothers are coming. Interested?" Yes, but no. I also have three annoying friends who did see the real thing ("Finsbury Park Astoria, Boxing Day, 1963," gloated one), and I was in a New Theatre audience for Paul McCartney's band Wings in the very early 1970s.

That is the closest I ever got - until last week, again at the New Theatre. The Bootleg Beatles have been plying their extraordinary trade since 1980 and are acknowledged as the best of the many tribute Beatle bands. Vitally, all of the artists are accomplished musicians and reproduce the sound with unnerving accuracy - if, occasionally, a touch more quickly than the originals. The bonuses come with their looks and singing voices (spot on, apart from Hugo Davenport's Ringo), together with neat stage banter.

The Bootlegs are also brave: they of course chart the hits through the various phases of the Beatles' journey (kicking off with I Want To Hold Your Hand and travelling through to a very moving Hey Jude by way of She Loves You, I Feel Fine, Help and so on). But along the way, they try out surprises from the catalogue: If I Needed Someone, Across The Universe and a truly laudable While My Guitar Gently Weeps. (The audience, always enthusiastic and happy to clap along when so encouraged, was noticeably appreciative of Andre Barreau's George on that last one - possibly because both impersonated and impersonator qualify as 'local lads').

What is strange, of course, is that the Bootlegs dare to do on stage what the Beatles themselves never did, closing the first half with A Day In The Life, and the whole show with part of the supreme Abbey Road side two. There was even some cute banter between John (Neil Harrison) and Paul (David Catlin-Birch) about recent High Court events.

A very clever evening and, if you closed your eyes, you might just think.