THE AUDITORIUM, M&S BANK ARENA, LIVERPOOL – WEDNESDAY 6TH SEPTEMBER 2023
REVIEWED BY MIA BOWEN
4****
This week, the brand-new stage production of Helen Forrester’s By The Waters Of Liverpool opened at the Auditorium in Liverpool to a delighted audience and now embarks on its 14 – venue Autumn Tour across the UK.
To all her avid readers out there, Helen Forrester is a very well-known and much-loved author. Born June Hubbard, this fictionalised account of her early life, describes growing up in 1930’s Liverpool. This play is a beautiful period drama produced by the same team (Rob Fennah, Bill Elms and Gareth Tudor Price) that brought the smash hit musical and stage play Twopence To Cross The Mersey, the prequel to By The Waters Of Liverpool.
For those of you outside of Liverpool or who haven’t heard about Helen Forrester, she has written a series of four books about her own journey which began living in the South-East of England in the 1930’s with opulence of private education and nannies, and then being thrust into poverty, due to the depression with her father losing their money. They moved up to depression-stricken Liverpool and with her parents unable to manage household and budget, many of tasks fell to Helen.
We pick up the story in 1939, with the world on the brink of war, a very young Helen (Emma Mulligan) tries to balance family life with her own search for independence amidst crippling poverty. Her father (Tom Roberts), a spineless but moral man, is unable to find work and spends both time and money in the pub. Her mother (Lynn Francis) is incredibly selfish, wastes money and discriminates between her children. She is bitter at the change in the family’s fortune from comfortable middle-class life in the southwest of England to working class Liverpool. Helen is taken out of school to care for her younger siblings, but this modern-day Cinderella is rescued from domestic drudgery by a ‘godmother’ in the form of Miss Finch (Lynne Fitzgerald) who finds her a job and the beginnings of independence.
The story follows the fortunes of the Forrester family, and Helen (played by Mulligan) in particular, through the 1930’s Depression and the war years, as acted and narrated by Mulligan, who speaks directly to the audience. She brought empathy out in the audience with all the challenges life throws at her. The cast, except for Mulligan, all played a number of roles which for me added to my appreciation of those involved, they were brilliant, there was humour, sympathy, frustration and tears.
The standout performance of the night to me was Lynne Fitzgerald as the Deaconess, one of the many parts she played. She had a real presence on stage and her skills in portraying different characters with different accents, were brilliant and very amusing at times.
I had the pleasure of watching this show in Liverpool and drove past the Royal Liver Building on my way to the theatre. This iconic building formed part of the authentic stage design and gave the feeling of nostalgia, setting the scene.