Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Cast: Paul Duckworth, Lindzi Germain, Michael Hawkins, Jennifer Hynes, Catherine Rice, Andrew Schofield, Lenny Wood.

Time may offer the dangling cries of surprising future in front of us, but it never truly prepares us for the rude awakening of change when it comes to becoming a parent, and then the drama of becoming a grandparent. It is in the shock of how our lives adjust in the face of age and new life that the alter of self-expression is diminished, it undergoes a transformation that in all honest so few of us are prepared for.

Lost Soul 2: Smigger’s Wrecked Head makes a triumphant return to Liverpool’s Royal Court Theatre, and despite Dave Kirby’s magnificent comedy last playing just a few short months before the world turned upside down, and the sudden sad loss of perennial favourite Jake Abraham in 2023, what is absolutely evident is just how poetic, how intricate, and devilishly funny the whole production is.

Time has given Smigger the rudest of wakings, and once again he finds his true love of his wife and soul music threatened by the winds of change, a new grandchild, a way of life peppered now exposed to the undesirable quality of youth that jeopardises his twin paradises; and as he struggles to come to terms with change, the pathos of being unready for the task is exposed and greatly appreciated by all.

Once more the play involves the fantastic Lindzie Germain, Catherine Rice, Lenny Wood, and Andrew Schofield in the roles they gave extreme life to in 2019, but with the world itself having altered, loved ones lost, it is to the superb Paul Duckworth, Michael Hawkins, and Jennifer Hynes to step into the large shoes to bring the much needed support to the fore; and indeed the whole cast, under the direction of Bob Eaton, raise the bar to wonderful, absolute heights of hilarity and pathos.

A revival of a Merseyside classic Lost Soul 2: Smigger’s Wrecked Head makes a welcome return to the stage, an investment of theatre at its most enjoyable.

Ian D. Hall