Originally published by L.S. Media November 30th 2011.

L.S. Media Rating *****

Cast: Paul Duckworth, Stephen Fletcher,  Lindzi Germain,  Rachel Rae, Andrew Schofield, Alan Stocks, Zeoi Cozens, Niamh  Fitzgerald, Kay Stanton, Sarah Walker.

Every great story deserves a sequel. Every drunk Irish Catholic Father who is best friends with four former gambling mad nuns and who escaped the island of Secosu merits the chance to have his story continued.

Written by Fred Lawless and following the events a year after Scouse Pacific, Little Scouse on the Prairie starts as it means to go on, by bringing laughter to the mouths of the audience and memorable, outrageous one-liners that brought out the smiles on the crowd. The audience is quickly greeted by the superb Alan Stocks as the uncouth man of the cloth, Father O’ Flaherty, as he stands on top of a bar in the wild-west of Speke. He is a man with much on his mind, not only is the parish social club losing money, it has debts beyond measure, there is no cash for the family to buy beer and the only source of income has dried up due to the nuns reforming their habit of gambling.

As the superb Rachel Rae finally flips at the thought of losing her home on Christmas Eve and believing her husband Dick, played by Stephen Fletcher, no longer cares about her she finds herself, in best Wizard of Oz motif, she finds herself in the little run down town of Halewood. Meeting characters who look suspiciously like her family and a young man calling himself Walt and four of the best burlesque nuns ever to tread the boards, her life is about to get even more challenging than a night in the Grafton.

Scouse Pacific brought the cast together last year. Little Scouse on the Prairie has entrenched this collaboration of acting and writing talent in such a way that it could run and run in the same way that Brick up the Mersey Tunnels has. Each actor gave a performance that not only took the mind off troubles in anybody’s lives for a while but also for the sheer will power not to descend into fits of laughter on stage as they sang their heart out to brilliant new lyrics to old established songs and generally had fun with the fantastic script.

An absolutely rip roaring night full of classic jokes, songs and one very brilliant dead cock.

Look Superlambanana, I don’t think we’re in Liverpool anymore…

Ian D. Hall