Once Upon a Time at the Adelphi

Synopsis

1930’s Liverpool, and the glitz and glamour of Hollywood pour off the luxury liners for their first taste of England; a night in the city’s most fashionable hotel. Amidst the chaos and decadence, no-nonsense Alice from Reception has fallen for the dashing Thompson from accounts - but fate, Hollywood, World War Two and a dizzying array of staff and guests intervene in an epic Liverpool love story spanning sixty years.

Our Review:

Michael Coveney - 8 March 2010

Phil Willmott’s sentimental musical paean to the vanished glory of a Liverpool hotel, Once Upon a Time at the Adelphi, was first seen in the summer of 2008 during the city’s European Capital of Culture festival.

It’s gamely revived at the Union, Willmott directing again, with a new cast disporting themselves in the tiny room as bell-boys, tweenies, war-time GIs and office secretaries while young Alice, doubled by Rebecca Hutchinson with a present-day hotel employee, encounters the ghost on the roof of her older self (Ally Holmes).

Alice became an assistant manageress while her boyfriend Thompson (Jon-Paul Hevey), a thief who graduated from the kitchen to accounts, goes off to fight in the Spanish Civil War and fails to return after the subsequent wider conflagration. The story is tortuously told, with some duff dialogue, and is over-egged towards the end.

But it’s an agreeable enough pastiche of a musical show that ends up like Happy as a Sandbag w...

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Latest User Review

Jackie - 26 March 2010:

A MUST SEE...............I NEED SAY NO MORE. I GO TO THEATRE 3 TO 4 TIMES EVERY WEEK AND THIS IS AN AMAZING SHOW. SHOULD BE IN THE WEST END!!!...

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