Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Very few poets can hold an audience’s attention in the same vein as Roger McGough. Even when he comes home to his native Liverpool, the crowds flock to see him in a similar way that you might expect to see pop stars that would find themselves surrounded by an adoring public, desperate just for a song or two. The crowds that make up the Playhouse Theatre are more discerning than the sight of those baying for blood from the latest protégé to come off the musical television conveyor belt and for an hour and a half, Roger McGough had all of them all spellbound in poetic glee.

The man of a million poems walked on stage to what seemed thunderous applause and beaming as you would expect a naughty school boy to be as he reels of poems and stories from what has been an incredible career. Starting the evening off, as put it, with a health and safety announcement, he proceeded to recite the poem In Case Of Fire.  From that moment on, no matter what poem he gave to those assembled, there was a rumbling of cheers that was suppressed only in that the poet wouldn’t give time for personal adulation until the evening was done. It is a measure of the man that is able to command the attention and respect in such a way.

Other classic poems followed and a huge quantity from his latest book As Far As I know. Old favourites as diverse as Learning To Read, Uncle Pat, Aunt Ermintrude, Carpe Diem and Let Me Die A Youngman’s Death were read alongside exciting new works such as Take Comfort, the thrilling Another Time, Another Place, the surreal Window Shopping, Die Barriere, As Far As I Know and the current Poet Laureate’s, Carol Ann Duffy, suggested Not For Me a Youngman’s Death.

An evening of great poetry from one of the giants of post Second World War Britain and who along with Adrian Henri and Brian Patten put Liverpool on the poetic map.

Ian D. Hall