September in the Rain set for Floral Pavilion

Director Jen Heyes brings one of John Godber’s most bitter sweet and touching comedies, September in the Rain, to the Floral Pavilion in New Brighton in May.

The play charts the life of Yorkshire couple Jack and Liz through their annual summer holiday jaunt across the Pennines to Blackpool, which has been a ritual for over 40 years. It’s the golden age of Blackpool with donkey rides, talent contests, saucy postcards, stripy deckchairs, ice cream, rolled-up trousers and knotted hankies.

Playing the roles of Jack and Liz are Brian Dodd and Pauline Daniels respectively. September in the Rain is described as a “wonderfully poignant piece of theatre based on Godber’s own memories of his grandparents whom share the same names”.

The couple dip in and out of time recalling their first holiday as newlyweds, to their last, as stooped pensioners, and share memories filled with tears and disappointments, fish and chips and wet and windy promenades in September.

Director Heyes won critical acclaim in 2008 for her adaptation of Lorca’s Blood Wedding, and has recently directed a sell-out series of performances of Tales From Haunted Liverpool at St George’s Hall.

Speaking about September in the Rain, she said: “This is such a fitting play to bring to New Brighton, a place filled to the brim with a history of seaside holiday memories that mirror’s Godber’s own. There must be a million Jack and Liz’s who have got sand in their socks on New Brighton beach and shared a bag of chips as they walked on the prom overlooked by the Floral Pavilion.”

September in the Rain appears at the Floral Pavilion from 27-29 May for four performances only.