Liverpool’s Royal Court’s new musical opens at the end of this week. Get ready for Girls Don’t Play Guitars by Ian Salmon!

The Liverbirds burst onto the Liverpool music scene in 1963, playing at the Cavern Club then off to Hamburg’s famous Star Club for a three-year residency. They met John Lennon as they were just starting out and he dismissed them with “Girls don’t play guitars”.

The hard-rocking quartet, consisting of vocalist-guitarist Valerie Gell, guitarist-vocalist Pamela Birch, bassist-vocalist Mary McGlory and drummer Sylvia Saunders, was the World’s first all-girl rock and roll group.