Bido Lito! Magazine | Issue 116 | August 2021

affirmed that I wanted to be a part of the project was
that it’s not just a rose-tinted look at Liverpool. Actually,
it’s asking how we really shine the spotlight on what
Liverpool is.”
It’s another challenge of the adaptation process:
what does the production need to say about Liverpool
now? “If you come to it with the view of, ‘I’m definitely
going to hear about The Beatles, there’s going to be
loads of football’, or all those things that are synonymous
with Liverpool – it’s not that,” promises Moss. But Love,
Liverpool ran the risk of falling into sentiment in other
ways. After all, the project was born at a time when we
almost needed that. In those months of 2020 when the
world was almost entirely inaccessible, we pined for
Liverpool. To fall into nostalgia for the good times – and
only the good times – was understandable.
Of course, the stage production of Love, Liverpool
needs to maintain some of what audiences enjoyed about
the podcast series. The focus is still on the voices, and
although they’re giving away little about the staging,
Powell reveals that less is more: “It’s a really bare stage,
a beautiful thing, because we’ve got five really amazing
performers. So, the job becomes quite simple: five people
telling us a story.” Meanwhile, projections from designer
Tracy Gibbs featuring contributions from members of the
public will offer visual cues to the city.
At the same time, Love, Liverpool must also consider
the question of how those of us who exist within this city
are relating to it in this present moment. Romanticism no
longer serves the same purpose now that we’re back in a
living place, with all the complexities that brings. Instead,
it becomes a dangerous safety blanket, a prop to a
particular strain of Scouse Exceptionalism which believes
that problems such as racism and homophobia aren’t
native to Liverpool. Sadly, recent events have reminded
us what a farce this idealism is.
Treading the line between honesty and celebration
is something that the team seem to have been very
conscious of throughout the development process. “The
hope is to offer, firstly, some pride,” explains Powell. “You
want people to walk away feeling proud of the city, but
also to really think about what normal is going to become
as the city starts to open back up. What does that look
like? And how is that going to shift from getting to hear
and see different people’s perspectives?”
This is something the collective experience of the
theatre production can offer that the podcast format
rarely can. To listen to a story through headphones is
“It’s not just a
rose-tinted look at
Liverpool. Actually,
it’s asking how we
really shine the
spotlight on what
Liverpool is”
FEATURE
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