IT IS just 20 years since Southport songwriter Anne Dalton wrote a musical based on the Victorian novel, Her Benny.

The tear-jerker story, originally published by Southport preacher Silas K Hocking, in 1879, was a best-seller, but few could have predicted its success as a stage musical over a century later.

Ms Dalton entered it for a new competition, the International Quest for New Musicals, and won, staging it in Buxton.

Then, in 1993, the show went on at the Liverpool Empire, a production which Anne not only produced but directed. In the same year she was named Scouseology Theatre Personality of the Year.

It packed them in at the Empire, won critical acclaim, and has been staged on and off ever since, always with Anne directing.

Now she is back with a new production, due to open at Crosby Civic Hall, on Monday, December 13, and running until Christmas Eve.

“I’ve lost count of the number of times I have done the show, but I have never done it on Christmas Eve, so that’s a first,” she says.

“This is the first time we have done it since the Empire in 2008.”