SOME stories just have to be told and sometimes just once won’t do, which may be why Rob Fennah turned his songwriting skills to Helen Forrester’s best-selling autobiography.

It may also be that he saw a shrewd business opportunity in the riches to rags tale, which has topped £2m at the box office.

And well he might, because Twopence to Cross the Mersey has everything you could want in a musical – cold-hearted villains, cheerful chaps with broad regional accents and flat hats and a triumphant ending against adversity.

What it lacks, however, is a big musical number that you find yourself singing over your cornflakes the next morning, although the songs are pleasant enough.

Butterfly in the Rain, the Fennah brothers’ creative starting point for the show, goes a long way to fill this gap – with lovely imagery taken straight from the book.

And it’s this proximity with the original text that is the musical’s greatest strength, presenting the characters through Helen’s eyes rather than as a series of stock roles.