IT’S a few years now since Roger McGough graduated “upstairs” to the Everyman stage, reading his quirky but often touching poetry to the paying public.

Initially, though, it was downstairs in the Bistro, then a tiny cellar bar, where he would try out his material.

In the 60s, the coffee bar only took up the room to the right of the staircase before it expanded – or “sped along”, as McGough in his poet’s voice puts it.

With fellow Liverpool poets Adrian Henri and Brian Patten, he would perform readings and “happenings”, and, with his band, The Scaffold, comedy sketches and songs. Or they would go along “for a bop” to his favourite band – and also The Beatles’ favourite, he points out – The Roadrunners.

“I still see the Everyman in many ways as it used to be, it’s been through so many different changes – and lots of ghosts, but good ones, friendly ones,” says McGough, 73, who is appearing at the theatre with Patten next month as one of the final events in the venue’s current incarnation. “You always think of a guy called Les the Doorman who was there for years, he was the fireman in charge. He always had a fag in his hand and he was in charge of fire and security.

“The Everyman Bistro means as much to me as the stage upstairs. Whereas the upstairs was dominated, quite rightly, by Willy Russell and (artistic director) Alan Dosser and all the actors, we had our little things downstairs. And there was no competition.”

With its ethos of producing theatre for all, the Everyman suited the Mersey poets, who believed in shaking the stuffiness out of poetry so everyone could understand and relate to it.