The full cast starring in the Helen Forrester play “By The Waters Of Liverpool” at Crewe Lyceum in September has been unveiled.
The show comes to South Cheshire as part of its UK Tour and arrives three years after the original tour was abandoned in 2020 because of Covid.
The 2023 eight-week tour opens in Liverpool but stops off in Crewe on September 18 and 19.
Tom Roberts will play John Forrester, Helen’s father. Joe Gill will play Harry O’Dwyer, Helen’s love interest. And newcomer Emma Mulligan will take the lead role of Helen Forrester.
The trio complete the nine-strong cast playing more than 50 characters, and also features Lynn Francis, Daniel Taylor, Lynne Fitzgerald, Joe Owens, Samantha Alton, and Roy Carruthers who were all announced in April.
The new stage production is based on the book of the same name by Forrester.
It’s a touching portrayal of her life story which continues to win her fans worldwide through four best-selling volumes of autobiography Twopence To Cross The Mersey, Liverpool Miss, By The Waters of Liverpool, and Lime Street At Two.
Writer and producer Rob Fennah enjoyed a long friendship with Forrester since adapting her first book Twopence To Cross The Mersey into a stage musical in 1994.
It premiered at the Liverpool Empire Theatre and Helen travelled from her home in Edmonton, Canada, to see first-hand her story brought to life on stage.
Rob later went on to develop Twopence into a straight play which has toured successfully since its first outing in 2015.
Since the author’s death in 2011, Rob has remained friends with Helen’s son Robert Bhatia. The productions are fully endorsed by the Helen Forrester Estate.
Rob said: “Announcing the full cast is taking another major step forward in bringing By The Waters Of Liverpool to life on stage once again.
“Our outstanding cast will tell Helen Forrester’s remarkable life story in ways to make people stop and think, laugh and cry, but most of all to appreciate her incredible writing.
“It has been a long time coming since we were forced to close in March 2020 after just two weeks into the tour – but in less than three months we’ll be back out there, on the road, taking Helen’s story to audiences across the UK.”
By The Waters Of Liverpool has sold more than a million books.
It is set in the 1930s after Helen’s father went bankrupt during the Depression.
Her family were forced to leave behind the nannies, servants and comfortable middle-class life in the South West of England.
The Forrester’s chose Liverpool to rebuild their shattered lives. They were in for a terrible shock.
Taken out of school to look after her young siblings, Helen is sick of being treated as an unpaid slave and begins a bitter fight with her parents for the right to go out to work and make her own way in life.
But by 1939 and with Britain on the verge of war Helen, now aged 20, has still never been kissed by a man.
But things start looking up for her when she meets a tall strong seaman and falls in love.
For tickets to see the show, go to crewelyceum.co.uk
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