THE secret ingredients for a successful Liverpool show discovered a few years ago are pop music, drama with a local touch and a healthy dollop of comedy.

All are contained in Good Golly Miss Molly, a show written and directed by Bob Eaton, a former Liverpool Everyman director who has been busy recently directing shows at the Royal Court using the same recipe, most notably in Brick Up the Mersey Tunnels.

This show was originally written for a theatre in Newcastle Under Lyme, but has been given a Liverpool setting and a largely Liverpool cast.

The result is a show brimming with live music played by the cast, and a storyline set in Liverpool in 1985 when housing associations were being created to save neighbourhood housing.

There are times when its backwards and forwards timescale can be a little confusing and a few ultra-short scenes (cough and you miss them) make it feel a little bitty at times.

But such shortcomings are eventually overcome by a cast delivering the goods both comically and musically, and a feel-good ending which leaves you dancing out of the theatre.

Heading the cast is Liverpool singer Sonia, who gives a powerhouse performance as the Molly of the title, playing the character from a small girl on Coronation Day in 1953 to 1985 when she leads a residents’ protest about house demolition.

Her chirpy personality shines through but she can also do tears and anguish (she has to tackle abandonment, abortion and a druggie lover along the way) and she sings gloriously.

She was still jumping around like a young ’un at the final curtain, belting out Shout.

Among the 10-strong cast, Eithne Browne is a delight playing a variety of characters (her old woman was a hoot), Carl Chase is a gloriously grumpy, left wing grandad and Francis Tucker a hilarious hippy.

While some of Liverpool’s political drama gets lost amid the numerous musical numbers and gags (“Bills, bills, bills – and Bill doesn’t even live here”), the show has a likeable feel to it and it has a reasonable story to tell.

It’s a story that is still told in the city – the play gives Militant Tendency a dishonourable mention – and which gives Good Golly a contemporary purpose.