Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
Cast: Paul Duckworth, John Burns, Carl Cockram, Keddy Sutton, Joe Shipman, Aimee Marnell, Scott Lewis, Adam Byrne, Victoria Hammond, Erin O’ Connell.
In a city where football is the main topic of conversation, where old ladies carrying their shopping home from The Strand in Bootle, to the young children playing on the streets of Toxteth and the public houses rammed full with those who cannot get a ticket to the next game, congregate and chat about the near religious experience they had watching Kenny Dalglish, Joe Royle, Andy King, the young and older version of Wayne Rooney and Ian Rush ply their trade on the stages of Goodison and Anfield, the city of Liverpool always has room for a play about the love of the game and the characters, the fans who make it what it is.
Whilst much has been made on stage, and on screen, about Liverpool F.C., perhaps the other side of Stanley Park has been seriously neglected, and yet that same passion that seeps out of the Kop, that noise, that thunder, is matched by the followers of the Blue half of the city as they sit in the stands, expectedly, waiting, sometimes bitter, sometimes downcast, but forever loyal to the cause inspired by the likes of Dixie Dean, Bob Latchford and Neville Southall.
Kenny O’ Connell takes that matter in well versed hand as The Heart of Everton’s Badge to The Grand Old Lady is presented with affection and insight at the Epstein Theatre. The play’s the thing…as a certain poet of Stratford once wrote, but this is not a production to capture the conscience of the King, it is there to celebrate with great comedy, beautiful passion and song, the life and soul of one of the last great grounds of English football before time inevitably leads the club down to Bramley Dock, a short distance perhaps, a mere free kick away, but in terms of the heart, a Universe away from the days when Goodison held sway over the fan’s hearts.
Celebration, it is perhaps done best with comedy, you can gently mock but still adore, you can remember the good times of derby wins and outstanding players, but you can still criticise; it is what makes the game, when out of the hands of television plundering, so special. It is in this celebration that the legend of gold still being buried in the Everton area is the ideal backdrop, in which two heroes emerge wanting to retain the heart of Everton’s badge, and the ghosts they meet who made the club, and the area, a vibrant holding place for history.
To capture the ideal of a club is remarkable, to do it without stepping into the realms of hype or flailing overblown praise is to be congratulated fully and with assured and unfailing performances by the cast, including Paul Duckworth as Uncle Jim, Joe Shipman in awesome form as both Dixie Dean and the drunken copper, and Keddy Sutton as wonderfully large as life as ever as M.P. and social conscious of the area, Bessie Braddock, the grand old lady could not be prouder.
No matter who you support, regardless of whether it is the reds of blues, or another team in which your life is pledged, The Heart of Everton’s Badge to The Grand Old Lady is a play of life, of community and belonging, a production to which footballing divide does not matter, only but which society can truly hold on to.
Ian D. Hall