Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Roy Carruthers, Emma Dears, Stephanie Dooley, Lynn Francis, Emily Hughes, Maria Lovelady, Nathan McMullen, Mark Moraghan, Danny O’ Brien, Eric Potts.

If not for the glorious sweep of water, arguably the most beguiling and entrancing river in the whole of England, the city of Liverpool would not be same place, carry the same memories and influence its environment as it has since people first settled in the area; the songs, the stories, the lifeblood of the great city stems, ebbs and flows like a giant’s pulse because of the Mersey, and By The Waters Of Liverpool is where all our lives converge and become clear.

With the 100th anniversary of renowned writer and social observer Helen Forrester’s birth coming in 2019, it seems appropriate that Rob Fennah should take the story of her life on from the beginning of her life which spawned the hugely successful and riveting Twopence To Cross The Mersey, and show how the girl finally stepped out of her mother’s domineering, some might say abusive and feckless shadow, and started to flourish in her own skin.

It was a flourishing that was not without its pain, its sorrow and with the spectre of World War Two hanging over the family and the city, that sense of new beginnings could easily have turned to disaster every day. The rebellion in her heart that had begun when she first defied her parents expectations of being a beck and call nanny and skivvy for them, when she first went to night school, had taken root, grown stronger and it is in this sense of majestic strength that writer and cast explore with stout resolution in Twopence’s sequel, By The Waters of Liverpool.

The production is seamless, a natural continuation as one would expect, and yet there is sense of growth in the production, almost as if the strength required by the young woman to overthrow her parent’s destiny for her has seeped into the world of the theatrical production, her own memoirs influencing greatly the mind and stand-out ability of Maria Lovelady who has played Helen now across the two connected stories.

It is a pleasure to watch an actor grow into such a role, and with ever polished performance of Emma Dears and Mark Moraghan as Helen’s mother and father and a superb supporting cast which includes the engaging Lynn Francis, fresh from their outstanding performances as part of the Everyman Company for 2018 Emily Hughes and Nathan McMullen, the ever reliable Roy Carruthers, Stephanie Dooley, Eric Potts and the genuine persuasiveness and beautifully imagined characters portrayed by Danny O’Brien, By The Waters of Liverpool is a testament, not only to Ms. Forrester’s sheer will, not just to the cast and creatives who have bought such an engaging woman’s story to the stage, but to the relentless power of the city, a city by the edge of the greatest stretch of water; a place where the world meets the true face of the country and is welcomed as such.

A magnificently produced sequel to a piece of classic Liverpool theatre, By The Waters of Liverpool is a must.

Ian D. Hall