Poet McGough is back in town
Liverpool’s Poet Laureate, Roger McGough, returns to the Liverpool Playhouse with his sell out show That Awkward Age next month, bringing a new collection of poems and prose.
That Awkward Age sees McGough return to perform on stage himself following his successful adaptations of Molière. In 2008, he revised Tartuffe which was part of Liverpool’s European Capital of Culture programme, while The Hypochondriac continues to garner further acclaim on tour following its run at the Playhouse during the summer this year.
In That Awkward Age, McGough wrestles with mortality, seeks love in the launderette, perspires in the Foreign Legion, snaps French photographer Henri Cartier Bresson in Liverpool and jives in Macca’s trousers. He shares the pain of Lord Godiva and Mr Nightingale, considers his Final Poem and shakes a fist at Alzheimer’s.
McGough is one of Liverpool’s best known sons and one of Britain’s favourite poetry voices, with a special gift for story telling and comic insight. He has done more than most to breathe life into poetry. Part of the top-selling Mersey Sound with Brian Patten and Adrian Henri, he also had hits with The Scaffold and club dates with Grimms, which led to more broadcasts, books and gigs than Chaucer.
In previous years, McGough has appeared to sold-out audiences at the Liverpool Everyman in 2007 with Pattern to perform 40-Love which was a 40th anniversary celebration of the publication of The Mersey Sound and in 2006 he performed extracts from his autobiography Said and Done to a packed Liverpool Playhouse. In June 2004, McGough was honoured with a CBE for services to literature and also gained the freedom of the city of Liverpool.
McGough visits with That Awkward Age on Friday 20 November at 7.30pm. Tickets cost £12-£15, call the box office on 0151 709 4776 for more details.
To read the Whatsonstage.com review of The Hypochondriac, click here
The Whatsonstage.com review of Tartuffe can be read here
*Photograph supplied by Leila Romaya and Paul McCann
Meanwhile, the Everyman and Playhouse youth theatre return to the Everyman stage, following last year’s production of Monkey, with Helen Newell’s stage adaptation of Mary Shelley’s timeless gothic horror, Frankenstein.
Directed by Christopher Tomlinson, over 30 people will take to the stage and take the audience on a journey full of love, hate, fear and passion. Set in the nineteenth century, with period costumes and incorporating live music played by the young cast, this will be the Everyman and Playhouse Youth Theatre’s third full production since the groups returned to the theatres in 2007. It’s the second presentation this year by them, following the studio production of The Love of the Nightingale by the senior members in May.
Frankenstein appears in the Hope Street theatre on Friday 13 and Saturday 14 November. Tickets cost £6.50. Call 0151 709 4776. *The production is suitable for 11-year-olds and above.
